Just a decade ago we were a bit saturated with the tech press. Mobile telephony was becoming increasingly important for us, for society and for the economy, and we felt overwhelmed by the launch of new smartphones.

Just ten years ago, in 2014, Mobile phone manufacturers broke a record together by offering 829 different models. More than twice a day, including weekends and holidays.

Nothing is the same again: exhausted after a race that left many corpses along the way (BlackBerry, LG, Ericsson, Siemens…) and devastated others (HTC, Nokia, Sony), many manufacturers were forced to close their shutters. ..). And we are now far from those years when at least 700 mobile phones were released annually.

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Let’s continue with the numbers. According to the database these are GSMArena, different models that the industry launches every year. Smartwatches, even with mobile connectivity, are not included, but different international versions of the same terminal are.

After a timid recovery after the pandemic, we closed the year 2023 by exceeding 500 models.

There are clear culprits for the recovery between 2020 and 2022: The wave of Chinese manufacturers that has gained momentum in recent years and their strategies contain a long catalog. We’re talking about manufacturers like Vivo, Xiaomi or Oppo (65, 40 and 35 phones released in 2023 respectively) compared to more limited established manufacturers like Samsung and Apple (23 and 4).

Even so, the gradual disappearance or decline of importance of other producers that were important but no longer important has resulted in reduced supply.

We’ve selected some manufacturers to illustrate their journey in units offered each year from 2000 to 2023.

This chart tells storiesLike the death of LG’s mobile division, Sony’s stagnation, the decline of Xiaomi’s catalog, which reached nearly 70 mobile phones released in 2022, or Nokia’s collapse and subsequent return to life. No tinsel, but let’s get back to life after all.

And this is not to mention the obvious phases of Samsung: after being crowned in 2010 as the leading manufacturer in global sales, following a strategy based on market saturation with different types of models (more than a hundred per year for three consecutive years), it went from fifty models per year, in parallel with the extinction of traditional phones. was reducing its launches to ensure consolidation well below.

Other times.

in Xataka | Amid the smartphone sales fiasco, only one manufacturer is saving itself from extinction: Apple

Featured image | Xataka, Mockuuups Studio