Refurbished smartphones: consumers look to savings over sustainability

This edition of the Industry Checkpoint series focuses on consumer devices, highlighting how the market has changed in the last six months and its implications. The report considers three major developments: accelerating innovation for smart glasses as leading companies try to establish it as the next major consumer platform; smartphone innovation becoming more diverse, from practical to experimental concepts; and chipmakers increasingly designing on-device agentic AI capabilities.

GSMA Intelligence's Chart of the Month is a visual way of telling an important story in the mobile and broader tech ecosystem. From the shape and size of markets to trends in consumer behaviour, we aim to provide food for thought through informative visuals designed to bring colour and clarity to complex issues facing the industry. This edition examines the preferred retailers and sales channels for consumer smartphone purchases.

On-device AI is the next frontier for AI deployments in consumer and enterprise segments. Use cases include AI-based search and personal assistants, image analytics on a smartphone, AI-assisted driving and navigation in cars, industrial applications such as automated guided vehicles, and improved IoT analytics. This has implications for the device world and major tech companies whose business models depend on consumer time on the internet and digital platforms. It also matters for operators, given the ripple effect of AI-driven data traffic on mobile and fibre networks, and the direct revenue opportunity.