According toThe Wall Street Journal:
And among existing smartphone owner, fewer are seeing the need to buy the latest Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy as the pace of innovation slows.
In an interview, a 26-year-old Alabama man who still uses a Samsung Galaxy S2, said“it will be a few years before a breakthrough and people buy phones like when Apple first introduced the iPhone.”
Shares of both Apple and Samsung have taken a battering as Wall Street investors voice concern about lower growth for the iPhone and the just-released Galaxy S4.
Investors, used to years of steady growth in the smartphone sector, now worry the best days are behind the two cell phone giants.
For carriers, the wide adoption of smartphones in the U.S. means the days of featurephone owners upgrading to more powerful handsets with data plans has almost reached an end.
While the carriers welcomed paying subsidies of around $400 to attract an iPhone user who will buy a data plan, upgrading a smartphone owner carries little benefit.
In response, carriers have enacted longer periods between upgrades and added new fees to slow the updates, according to the report.
While some carriers – such asVerizon,AT&TandT-Mobilehave begun offering quicker upgrades if customers opt out of subsidized handset prices – they are also investigating other revenue streams.
T-Mobile, the nation’s fourth-largest telco, is looking toward wearable devices such as Apple’s rumorediWatchto save the day.
“There is a whole new generation of wearable devices coming that could have some impact on the industry,”T-Mobile CEO U.S. CEO John Legere told the newspaper.
However, as we wrote earlier today, the market for smartwatches is set togrow tenfold next yearamid rumors of technology giants entering the market.
In addition to Apple’s iWatch,SamsungandGoogleare reportedly working on own wristwatch products while Microsoft is developing a smartwatch with atransparent aluminum chassis and LTE capability.
