Omdia: Demand for low-end smartphones priced below $150 surges

The low-end price range saw the fastest growth among all smartphone categories. Phones priced below $150 grew by 30 million units year-on-year, from 90 million units in the first quarter of 2023 to 120 million units in the first quarter of 2024, a 33% increase. Notably, ultra-low-cost phones priced at $90 or less showed impressive year-on-year growth, from 18 million units in the first quarter of 2023 to 34 million units in the first quarter of 2024, a 87% increase.

An important factor driving this growth is the trend among mid-range phone buyers: either upgrading to a higher-end model or downgrading to a more affordable low-end phone. Omdia's consumer surveys show that the smartphone replacement cycle in emerging markets is shorter than in developed countries. Aaron West, senior analyst on Omdia's smartphone research team, explained: "This is because cheap smartphones do not perform well and they have shorter security and operating system support cycles. As OEMs launch new low-priced models in countries such as India, demand for low-end smartphones in expanding emerging markets has also steadily increased."

Demand for mid-range phones priced between $151 and $600 dropped significantly in early 2023 and has yet to recover. In the first quarter of 2024, shipments of these phones were 107 million units, 2 million fewer than the 109 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2023. As shown in Figure 1, this long-term trend shows that the mid-range segment has shown a negative year-on-year growth trend in recent years, while the low-end segment has shown a positive growth trend since the first quarter of 2023, and the high-end segment has also grown since the third quarter of 2023.