Smartphone shipments are down 11% YoY Q2 2026. Full year projected drop of 14%.
Consumer PCs are down around 5%. Only the trend bucked originally by the new Mac neo by Apple.
There was news that the price hikes killed Steamdeck sales 82%! [0].
The Apple product price hikes from a month ago were more brutal than I could have imagined. Especially on stuff like the iPads with like 30% hikes. I can picture that it would have caused some serious demand destruction even given the Apple ecosystem lock in amoung cost conscious buyers.
[0] https://www.techradar.com/gaming/steam-deck/new-estimate-sug...
Valve was sold out of the Steam Deck for a long time, so I’d expect their sales to have been very low.
They also talked about difficulty sourcing parts for the Steam Machine at any price.
I definitely subscribe to the idea that some device categories really do turn from an impulse buy thing into making zero sense for most people at some price. Stuff like a steam deck or an iPad are going to be the most sensitive to that.
I own an iPad that is literally useless to me outside of reading/printing recipes in the kitchen or watching videos on. The device can certainly do more than that but it’s just not what the form factor makes sense for in my life.
I paid something like $300-400 for a refurbished previous model iPad Air.
If that device turned out completely useless that wasn’t a big loss.
Same deal with the Steam Deck: at $350 it’s worth taking a chance on even if it ends up collecting dust.
Can sufficient demand from a few parties destroy demand in other categories to a sufficient degree that it affects net demand entirely?
Though Apple likely have more leverage now considering how DRAM cartel restricting supply.