Analysts predict smartphone decline

Smartphones are not disappearing. But the easy assumption — that the phone stays the center of personal tech and everything else is an accessory — is starting to crack. What changed is not one killer gadget. It’s a pileup of market signals: smartphone forecasts got cut for 2026, while smart glasses and other lightweight wearables started posting real growth. ### Are analysts actually predicting the end of smartphones? Not really. The serious analyst view is softer and more interesting than that. Gartner said worldwide smartphone shipments are projected to drop 8.4% in 2026 because of surging memory costs, and Counterpoint revised its 2026 smartphone shipment forecast to a 2.1% decline for similar reasons. IDC’s public 2026 smartphone view is flatter, not catastrophic. (gartner.com) So the immediate story is slowdown and pressure, not extinction. ### So why are people talking about decline? Because “decline” can mean two different things. One is unit shipments going down next year. The other is the phone losing its monopoly on where people spend upgrade money and where AI shows up first. That second idea is getting more plausible. IDC says emerging form factors like display-less smart glasses and smart rings are gaining traction in wearables, and it expects glasses to support longer-term expansion. (gartner.com) ### Why are glasses suddenly the focus? Because the market finally found a version people will actually wear. IDC says smart glasses without displays already make up the majority of XR shipments, and Counterpoint said global smart-glasses shipments jumped 110% year over year in the first half of 2025. Meta alone held 73% share in that period. That is a very different picture from the old “cool demo, nobody buys it” era. (idc.com) ### What changed from the earlier flops? The winning products got simpler. Humane’s AI Pin and Rabbit’s R1 tried to become new primary devices. That was the hard mode. The newer glasses mostly act like better peripherals — camera, audio, voice access, and AI help — inside familiar frames. IDC notes that second-generation Meta Ray-Ban glasses sold more than 900,000 units in Q4 2024 after the first generation fizzled. (idc.com) Basically, the category stopped asking people to change their whole behavior on day one. ### Where does Apple fit in? Apple matters less because it has already won this category and more because it seems to be repositioning toward it. Bloomberg reported in October 2025 that Apple paused a bigger Vision headset revamp to prioritize AI smart glasses that could compete more directly with Meta. That does not prove glasses replace phones. But it does show that one of the most important device companies thinks lightweight face-worn computing is strategically urgent. (idc.com) ### What about earbuds and watches? The broad thesis is that ambient AI works best on devices you can wear all day. Glasses can see and hear. Earbuds can hear and speak. Watches can surface small, timely prompts. None of those fully replace the phone yet, but together they can peel away moments that used to require pulling out a slab of glass. That is the real threat — not one successor device, but a bundle of them. (bloomberg.com) ### What would have to happen for phones to really lose ground? Wearables need to get better at three boring things: battery life, comfort, and trust. They also need cleaner handoff between devices, so the user feels one system instead of three half-finished companions. Meta’s recent momentum suggests that lightweight glasses can clear the comfort test. The harder part is making them useful often enough to earn a place in the budget every upgrade cycle. (idc.com) ### Bottom line The smartphone is not dying. But the center of gravity is shifting. Analysts are now describing a market where phones grow slower or even shrink, while AI wearables — especially smart glasses — absorb more of the excitement, engineering effort, and eventually the spending. (gartner.com) (counterpointresearch.com)