In Germany, smartphone sales continue to decline. According to new figures, 1.6 million fewer consumers recently opted for a new mobile phone. The forecast for 2022 is also unlikely to go down well with the producers. There are good reasons for the drop in sales – also among the manufacturers.

Mobile phone sales in Germany have fallen again

According to a new study, cell phone sales in Germany dropped for the sixth consecutive year. In 2021, customers in Germany opted for a total of 20.4 million new smartphones, which corresponds to a decrease of 1.6 million. For the current year, sales of only 19.7 million copies are forecast in Germany (source: extra).

Manufacturers in Germany are now a long way from boom times. In 2015, customers still bought 26.2 million smartphones, since then it has been steadily downhill. In previous years, producers were still able to point to massive growth in some cases.

This is how smartphone sales have developed in recent years:

The fat years are over for smartphone manufacturers. Image source: extra.

Both most popular smartphone brands there have been hardly any major changes at the top in recent years. Customers in Germany still like to use mobile phones from Samsung and Apple.

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Customers are staying longer and longer with their phones

There are many reasons for the drop in sales. Customers are keeping their smartphones longer than before. In Europe lies the average useful life at 40 months. In the US it’s only 24 months.

In addition new models differ less and less from the predecessors. If the camera takes good photos, the battery lasts a long time and there is no lack of performance overall, then you don’t need a new smartphone. In addition, there are longer software updates from the manufacturers, which increase the service life of smartphones – even if there is still room for improvement.