Are Smartphone Sales Cooling Off?

Are U.S. smart phone sales growing or not? It's a bit of a rhetorical question, as the issue is not whether smart phone sales are growing, but rather whether sales rates are declining, flat or growing. 


Third quarter results might not be a completely-reliable indicator, though. Are Smartphone Sales Cooling Off?

Apple’s third quarter sales, for example, were most likely less than expected due to the coming iPhone 4S, which will have the likely impact of pushing third quarter sales into the fourth quarter.


New product introductions often cause consumers to see what’s coming before they decide to make a purchase.

In the market for Android-based phones, the situation is a little fuzzier. Most data shows healthy Android device growth. Android sales As with the iPhone, consumers wait to for the latest product, so a rapid pace of introductions can confuse consumers and slow sales, temporarily.

One suspects that tablet interest is also partly at work. Right now, tablets are "the" hot consumer product category, and that has to be shifting discretionary income away from smart phones, toward tablets, to some extent.