The market for mobile devices, including basic and smart phones, tablets and wearables, is massive; it accounted for 1.7 billion shipments and over $500 billion in the year to the end of June this year. The installed base of 3.7 billion (if you can talk about a something ‘mobile’ being ‘installed’!) is the equivalent of one device for every two inhabitants of this planet. Actually the share is inequitable, with most of the world having none and a significant proportion having many more than a single machine.
The market
My Figure above shows the annual size of the component parts since 2003. During that time there has been a significant shift from ‘basic’ feature phones typified by those made by Nokia, to richer computerized ‘smart’ phones typified by Apple’s iOS and Samsung’s Android-based products. There is no doubt that mobile devices have helped to shift the world’s population from mainly physical – to mainly virtual – social and business interactions. They have been essential tools in keeping us connected during the pandemic and will undoubtedly play a role in helping the world combat global warming, even if the rare earth metals they contain, the high carbon cost of their manufacturing and the ways in which they are sold and supported are themselves major contributors to the heating of our planet.
My Figure above shows market shares for mobile devices by type and supplier for both shipments and revenues in the year to the end of June 2021. From the data we can see the extents to which smart phones now dominate both shipments and spending and the dominance of three suppliers, which account for over 75% of the spending and over 50% of the shipments in the last year. We’re undoubtedly in a global market, even if the US administration of both Trump and Biden continue to apply sanctions on Huawei and other Chinese suppliers; it’s OK, it seems from their point of view, for the vast majority of these devices to be made in China, but not for their suppliers to enjoy the same opportunities for sales or component supplies as Apple or Samsung.
Political interference with global market leaders
The net effect of US administrations’ sanctions on Chinese suppliers can be seen at the end of the period in my Figure above, which shows a significant decline since 2019 in the national success of Chinese suppliers (Huawei, Xiaomi and BBK) in favour of American (mainly Apple) and South Korean (mainly Samsung) ones. Despite this, the vast majority of mobile devices are made in China (even by Apple and Samsung), but consumed as an equal part of IT spending in every country in the world.
Mobile devices and global warming
We should all be concerned about the high carbon emissions associated with mobile devices. This comes from various areas, including:
- Operational costs for recharging, data center software/support and network connections; all of which can be addressed at a national level by shifting energy production from fossil fuel to renewable sources;
- Manufacturing costs (probably five times higher than operational costs), which are the remit of the countries in which components and assembly take place;
- Supply chain costs from shipping components and finished products around the world; these are almost all created through fossil fuel used in planes, trucks and ships.
Perhaps the most serious carbon cost of mobile devices cost comes from their short life-span. Suppliers are constantly adding new features, components and aspirational advertising to persuade us to replace them at accelerating rates. In the absence of strong second-hand markets or well though-out recycling activities, this multiplies the carbon cost of manufacturing in this market significantly.
To reduce the effects of this market on climate change, I encourage:
- Users – to think harder about delaying before buying a new (or second, third or fourth) device; put another way, we could halve the effects this market has on climate change by doubling the time we take to replace them;
- Manufacturers – to shift the source of the energy from fossil fuel to renewable where possible;
- Suppliers – to shift their offerings from new hardware to better software and services;
- Governments – to sponsor the development of low-carbon (or even carbon-free) production.
One advantage we have is the slowing of the effect of Moore’s law on the processors used in these devices and the fullness of features already incorporated in them. We should be prouder of still using an old smart phone than we are excited about buying a new one.
By the way, you won’t hear these ideas from many other research companies, simply because they are usually paid by manufacturers to help them sell more phones!