It is no secret that manufacturers are finding it more difficult to shift smartphone units in the U.S., as well as everywhere else in the world. However, the cause for this is far more complicated. In fact, it does seem likely that this is a multi-pronged issue. On the one hand, each year seems to bring with it an influx of the variance of manufacturers who produce mobile phones and more recently, an influx of newer and fresher companies coming with their own price-conscious offerings. Not to mention, manufacturers like Samsung, also produce a wealth of different smartphones, essentially, creating their own device competition, as well as the wider between-manufacturer competition. Which presumably while helping to achieve a greater number of overall sales, cannot stop them being a casualty of the current state of the mobile phone market.
Then there is also the issue of turnaround cycles. At times it can seem that some manufacturers release follow-up devices quicker than consumers would like or can afford to make use of. As such, the mobile market in the U.S. right now, is one which is very difficult to gauge and make solid predictions based on. Speaking of which, Best Buy has today released some details on their Holiday season sales and revenues. The big headline aspect is that they note the 2015 Holiday season saw close to a 1-percent decrease in domestic revenue compared to that of the year before. What is more interesting from the mobile market perspective, is that Best Buy attribute the decrease in domestic revenue to being “primarily driven by the mobile phone category“.
In fact, Best Buy reiterates the blame on the mobile phone sector by noting that they are now revising their fourth quarter expectations to reflect a 1.5-percent drop. Again, this revision was blamed on the “softer consumer demand in mobile phones“, consumer demand which was less than they had anticipated for the quarter. One positive aspect to note though (although, possibly one of the other contributing factors to the ‘softer demand’ for mobile phones), was that Best Buy saw a sales growth for ‘health and wearable’ related devices. In spite of the growth not being sufficient enough to offset the lack of demand for mobile phones, this is an area of growth which is expected to keep growing going forward. Albeit, likely at the further expense of the mobile phone market. Those interested in checking out the figures in more detail, can do so below or head through the source link to read the Best Buy press release in full.