#202. 2022 was tough, 2023 will be even tougher for the smartphone market

Hi all.

The last days of a difficult 2022 are in the yard. It feels like people want to celebrate the New Year,

no matter what.In general, this is understandable: maintaining a tradition allows you to relax a little, but to feel normal. I notice this myself. This year, for the first time in 20 years, the house has a live Christmas tree, or rather, a pine tree. I wished that there was a smell of pine needles throughout the apartment. With pine, of course, I had to tinker and go to distant lands in order to find a properly fluffy and regular shape.

Companies send New Year's souvenirs.Perhaps the most New Year's gift was made by realme thanks to the attached yellow (corporate color) New Year's sweater. In my opinion, this year realme, in general, has significantly upgraded in terms of sense of style. What is an inexpensive realme c35 smartphone, what is realme 10, what is GT Neo 3, what is a Prime Book laptop. In all products, it is felt that they bothered and thought over the design. In this regard, realme, for example, bypasses the same Samsung and Xiaomi, which are developing one design that, with minor changes, will be used in smartphones of different price segments.

By the way, Netflix released a new detective "Getknives" with Daniel Craig. If you missed it, I would definitely recommend it. The second part turned out no worse than the first. Perhaps the intrigue has become a little simpler, but the film looks easy and in the same breath. Great Christmas movie.

Turbulence within corporations

DNS is preparing for the start of sales of TECNO Phantom X2at a good price of 43,990 rubles. If there are DNS stores in the neighborhood, then I recommend going and seeing it live. It turned out to be a surprisingly decent device, which definitely bypasses the A-series from Samsung. By the way, we had a material devoted to the photo capabilities of the device. Please note that many people get confused by not guessing the footage from Samsung and TECNO. This is especially telling given the price difference between the TECNO Phantom X2 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4.

The results of a blind comparison of the photo capabilities of Tecno Phantom X2 Pro and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4

We compare two matrices of 50-megapixels - the difference is one generation, the flagship from Samsung, the flagship of the Chinese company. Who will be better? A $1,600 smartphone or one that costs three times less?

TECNO competes closely with the 12T Pro series fromXiaomi. And, frankly, if I had to choose, I would not say on the fly which smartphone I would choose. Despite the 200 MP module from Xiaomi, subjectively, TECNO likes the camera more. In terms of chipset or screen, smartphones are on an equal footing (although the screen brightness is definitely higher for Xiaomi). On the side of Xiaomi, guaranteed software support. The user can be sure that he will receive 3 versions of Android. But TECNO prefers to bypass the issue of updates.

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In any case, TECNO Phantom X2 pleases at least with the fact that smartphones from other manufacturers breathe down the back of the head. Such things contribute to tougher competition, from which buyers always benefit.

Recently, we analyzed the permutations inside Samsung. In short, the manufacturer moves away from the strategy of cost optimization and moves to the strategy of innovative solutions.

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2023 for Samsung, apparently, will also be difficult,as, however, for all smartphone manufacturers. The recession is gaining momentum, and all companies are reducing their plans for shipments. 2022, by the way, also turned out to be difficult for Samsung. Research companies have already calculated that the company managed to sell less than 30 million flagship smartphones of the Galaxy S22 series in a year. Sales of smartphones with a flexible screen, according to forecasts, will amount to 12.5 million units. This is certainly an increase compared to 10 million a year earlier, but Samsung has not been able to make such devices truly massive.

The first leaks began to appear on the networksynthetic tests about the Galaxy S23 Ultra. So, in the Geekbench test, new smartphones based on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipsets are significantly behind competitors in the multi-core test (that is, a test that uses all the resources of the chipset). While Samsung shows results at the level of 4700-4800 points, already presented smartphones from Xiaomi and Vivo are able to “knock out” around 5200 points. In fact, this suggests that Samsung decided to tighten the performance of the chipsets in order to reduce the cost of the cooling system. It won't be long before new devices arrive. However, it will be sad if users on Qualcomm chipsets also face the usual throttling and overheating.

Following Samsung, news aboutoptimization inside Xiaomi. The company not only cuts 10% of the staff, but also top managers who are among the founders of the company are sent to honorable resignations. Formally, only Lei Hong remained at the helm of the old guard, whom we are used to seeing as the face of the company at presentations.

Xiaomi faces a difficult task. If you forgot, then about a year ago, it was Lei Hong who promised that Xiaomi would soon become the main premium brand in China.

Xiaomi wants to become a Chinese Apple selling notas much gadgets as lifestyle. To implement this strategy, the company is working in three areas: smartphones, smart home technology and cars.

It should be noted here, perhaps, that ifundertakings and will be successful, then only in China, since in foreign markets the company still relies heavily on Google's infrastructure, without offering any unique "chips" for which buyers will choose Xiaomi smartphones exclusively. For example, I like Xiaomi smart gadgets, but I have the Mi Home app installed on my Samsung smartphone. Similarly, I generally like the MIUI shell, but when I go for a new smartphone, I will look first of all at the ratio of price, hardware and features, and then at the brand.

What the company does firsta bet on China, and then on the rest of the world, says at least the fact that Xiaomi 12S Ultra is sold exclusively in China. By the way, we have a review of this smartphone. I recommend reading it, but adjusted for the fact that Roma is testing the Chinese version and did not understand that there will be no global version:

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However, in China, Xiaomi has a chance of success, soas Xiaomi is one of the few manufacturers with brand strength. The same realme cat mascot gift card mentioned above shows that realme is working in the same direction, trying to shift shoppers from a rational to an empathic track. That is, for customers to purchase products, guided by the image drawn. Like, for example, the iPhone, whose owners, according to surveys, consider themselves more creative and at a higher social level than the owners of other smartphones.

Since Apple has already been touched, it is necessary to emphasize thatфакт, что последние пару лет компания работает на максимальных оборотах, отгружая рекордное количество iPhone. Данных 4-го квартала на графике ниже нет, это прогноз исходя из предыдущих продаж. Вполне вероятно, что компания продаст меньше, так как, кажется, это первый раз в истории компании, когда новый 14-й iPhone ничем не отличается от прошлогоднего. Тем интереснее будет посмотреть на результаты. Так как отсутствие снижения продаж можно будет воспринимать как свидетельство непотопляемости Apple.

However, one should not forget that behind the peaksdownturns inevitably follow. And the iPhone seems to be the only device on the market that continues to sell successfully against common sense. I suppose that in the US it is unlikely that anything will change, where the iPhone occupies more than 60% of the market, and there is nothing on the shelves except Samsung, OnePlus and Motorola.

But in the rest of the world there has to be at least some shift. Still, consumer incomes are declining, while iPhone prices, on the contrary, are rising.

In Russia, sales of new iPhones decreased by 2times. However, the remaining sales show an unbridled level of loyalty among Apple fans who buy new smartphones, oblivious to the fact that some of the functions do not work.

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For Apple, 2023 will definitely be an interesting year.First, the iPhone 15 has to be innovative, because even the most successful company cannot pull off the same trick twice by giving users last year's product.

Secondly, insiders say that Apple is onTSMC launches 3nm notebook chipset manufacturing at TSMC factories. By the way, in terms of computer processors on the market as a whole, it will be interesting, since not only Apple and traditionally AMD will covet the 3 nm process technology, but also Intel, which is going to use this process technology in its new 14th generation processors.

In terms of innovation and new technology, I look at the worldwith great optimism. The current turbulence will give producers a great shake-up. It is likely that someone will lose positions and we will see new leaders.

And you can already get acquainted with examples of typical flagship smartphones in 2023 in this material.

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Fully robotic McDonald's in the US

The end of 2022 is passing with the feeling thata little more, and artificial intelligence with robots will replace us. At the same time, everyone is worried about what is happening, from taxi drivers who should be replaced by autonomous cars, to designers, programmers and copywriters who have seen that even in the form of a pre-alpha release of ChatGPT, many of them can lose their jobs. It's funny that big corporations are also worried. Because of ChatGPT, Google sounded the alarm, transferring teams to the urgent development of competitive solutions. We analyzed the situation in a separate article.

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McDonald's isn't far behind either. In Texas, the company introduced and launched the first 100% robotic restaurant.

The restaurant is small, only open for takeout. The visitor orders through the application or at the terminal, and then the finished order leaves for him on a conveyor belt.

There are many videos taken by visitors on the network.Unfortunately, McDonald's keeps its secrets closely, so there are no videos or photos of machines making burgers and frying potatoes yet. Also, McDonald's does not disclose how many people it needs to serve the restaurant. Someone has to load the raw materials and clean the machines.

The concept of a robotic McDonald's has already caused outbursts of excitement and panic around the world.

The joy of business owners is understandable.A robotic cafe is an ideal way to reduce the cost of production, as well as get rid of the typical problems of catering establishments. No more hair or uncooked cutlet will be included in the order. The robot will do everything clearly and stably. At the same time, most likely, the number of conflict situations will be reduced, since no one will waste time quarreling with the robot. And we all know that there is such a category of buyers for whom everyone around is always to blame.

But, of course, there are many who panic, asthe robotic McDonald’s threatens not only with the dismissal of current employees, but also with the deterioration of well-being in the most, as they say, unprotected categories of the population (we are talking about students looking for part-time jobs, and about those who have no other professions).

In general, of course, at the current stagerobotic McDonald's is a problem in developed countries with high base pay. As long as it is cheaper to hire live staff, no one will bother and invest in robots.

Conclusion

Happy New Year, everyone!The year has been difficult. It's funny that every past year seems difficult, and subconsciously you think that it can't be harder or worse. But it turns out that around the corner more and more amazing twists of fate.

In the New Year, I would like to wish everyone health, courage and determination.