Animation: How the Mobile Phone Market Has Evolved Over 30 Years
Connect with us

Technology

Animation: How the Mobile Phone Market Has Evolved Over 30 Years

Published

on

How The Mobile Phone Market Has Evolved Since 1993

The mobile phone landscape looks drastically different today than it did three decades ago.

In 1993, Motorola accounted for more than half of the mobile phone market. But by 2021, its market share had shrunk to just 2.2%. How did this happen, and how has the mobile industry changed over the last 30 years?

This video by James Eagle chronicles the evolution of the mobile phone market, showing the rise and fall of various mobile phone manufacturers. The data spans from December 1992 to December 2021.

The Early Days of Mobile Phones

Motorola is known for being a pioneer in the mobile phone industry.

In 1983, the American company launched one of the world’s first commercially available mobile phones—the DynaTAC 8000X. The revolutionary analog phone cost nearly $4,000 and offered users up to 30 minutes of talk time before needing to be recharged.

Motorola went on to launch a few more devices over the next few years, like the MicroTAC 9800X in 1989 and the International 3200 in 1992, and quickly became a dominant player in the nascent industry. In the early days of the market, the company’s only serious competitor was Finnish multinational Nokia, which had acquired the early mobile network pioneer Mobira.

But by the mid-1990s, other competitors like Sony and Siemens started to gain some solid footing, which chipped away at Motorola’s dominance. In September 1995, the company’s market share was down to 32.1%.

Mobile Phone Market Share by Company% Share (Sept. 1995)
Motorola32.1%
Nokia22.0%
Sony10.7%
NEC9.2%
Siemens2.1%
Samsung0.4%
Other23.5%

By January 1999, Nokia surpassed Motorola as the leading mobile phone manufacturer, accounting for 21.4% of global market share. That put it just slightly ahead of Motorola’s 20.8%.

One of the reasons for Nokia’s surging popularity was the major headway the company was making in the digital phone space. In 1999, the company released the Nokia 7110, the first mobile phone to have a web browser.

But it wasn’t just Nokia’s innovations that were hampering Motorola. In 1999, Motorola fell on hard times after one of its spin-off projects called Iridium SSC filed for bankruptcy. This put a massive financial strain on the company, and it eventually laid off a large chunk of its workforce after the project failed.

From then on, Motorola’s market share hovered between 14% and 20%, until Apple’s iPhone entered the scene in 2007 and turned the mobile phone industry on its head.

The Emergence of the iPhone

Things really started to change with the launch of the iPhone in 2007.

In a keynote presentation at the San Francisco Macworld Expo in 2007, Steve Jobs presented the iPhone as three products wrapped into one device: a touchscreen iPod, a revolutionary cell phone, and an internet communications device.

One year later, Apple launched the App Store, which gave users the ability to download applications and games onto their iPhones. Not only did this greatly enhance the iPhone’s functionality, but it also allowed consumers to customize their mobile devices like never before.

This was the start of a new era of smartphones—one that Motorola failed to keep up with. Less than two years after the iPhone launched, Apple had captured 17.4% of the mobile phone market. In contrast, Motorola’s market share had shrunk down to 4.9%.

By the end of 2021, Apple held about 27.3% of the global mobile market. The iPhone is a key part of the tech giant’s growth, driving more than 50% of the company’s overall revenue.

A Failure to Pivot

While a number of factors contributed to Motorola’s downfall, many point to one central hurdle—the company’s failure to pivot.

The iPhone’s emergence was the start of a new, software-driven era. Motorola had mastered the hardware-driven era, but failed to keep up when the tides changed. And the animation above highlights other companies that also failed to adapt or keep up, including BlackBerry (formerly RIM), Palm, Sony, and LG.

But Apple is not alone. The popularity of Google’s Android mobile operating system has helped competitors like South Korea’s Samsung and China’s Huawei and Xiaomi flourish, with each company establishing strong footholds in the global mobile phone market.

In today’s fast-paced world, the ability to pivot is essential if businesses want to remain competitive. Will today’s mobile phone giants like Apple and Samsung remain on top? Or will other companies like Huawei catch up in the next few years?

green check mark icon

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

Click for Comments

Technology

Charted: The Growth of Industrial Robots by Country

Over 4 million industrial robots now operate worldwide. In this graphic, we show where they’re booming the fastest.

Published

on

Bar chart showing the growth of industrial robot installations in 2023 by country.

Charted: The Growth of Industrial Robots by Country

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

  • Globally, there were nearly 4.3 million operational industrial robots in 2023, with China installing over 276,000 that year alone.
  • India saw the fastest annual growth of industrial robots, rising by 59% annually—the equivalent of 8,510 new robots in 2023.
  • In the UK, the automotive sector drove installations, increasing by 297% annually. Meanwhile, the metal and food sectors also experienced notable installation growth over the year.

As robots become more common across industries—from automotive plants to food processing facilities—manufacturing is steadily becoming more automated.

In 2023, over 540,000 new industrial robots were installed, pushing the global total past 4 million for the first time. Overall, Asia accounted for 70% of these new installations while Europe and the Americas made up 17% and 10% shares, respectively.

This graphic shows the rise in industrial robot installations by country, based on data from the International Federation of Robotics and 2025 AI Index Report.

India Sees the Fastest Annual Growth

While global industrial robot installations jumped by 10% in 2023, India outpaced this growth by nearly sixfold.

The automotive sector largely powered installations, which boomed by 139% over the year. Overall, the sector added 3,551 robots into factories, comprising a 42% share of installations.

CountryAnnual Growth Rate of Industrial Robot Installations
in 2023 (%)
🇮🇳 India59
🇬🇧 UK51
🇨🇦 Canada37
🇪🇸 Spain31
🇹🇷 Türkiye15
🇹🇭 Thailand9
🇩🇪 Germany7
🇰🇷 South Korea-1
🇲🇽 Mexico-3
🇺🇸 U.S.-5
🇨🇳 China-5
🇮🇹 Italy-9
🇯🇵 Japan-9
🇫🇷 France-13
🇹🇼 Taiwan-43

As we can see, the UK followed closely behind, with a 51% increase in industrial robot installations in 2023.

This brought the total number of new units to 3,083—though the figure still lagged behind countries like Canada, Spain, and Mexico. One notable adopter is Greencore, the UK’s largest sandwich manufacturer, which invests $25 million annually in industrial robots. These machines reportedly save the company 350 labor hours per week on sushi-making, as just one example.

In the U.S., new installations reached 37,587, marking a 5% annual decline. The automotive industry drove a third of this share, making it the largest market for robot deployment. For instance, General Motors uses collaborative robots that grasp tools on the assembly line.

Notably, more than 1 million robots are used in the auto industry worldwide.

Top 5 Countries by Number of New Industrial Robots

When it comes to the absolute number of installed industrial robots, China took the lead by far:

CountryNumber of Installed Industrial Robots in 2023
🇨🇳 China276,000
🇯🇵 Japan46,000
🇺🇸 U.S.38,000
🇰🇷 South Korea31,000
🇩🇪 Germany28,000

In total, there are 1.7 million machines working in China’s factories, with the highest concentration in the electronics and electrical sector.

While China dominates globally, South Korea has the highest share of industrial robots per capita. In 2023, there were 1,012 machines per 10,000 employees compared with 392 in China and 285 in America. Many leading South Korean companies, such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, deploy industrial robots supported by the country’s advanced robotics industry.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn more about this topic from a humanoid robot perspective, check out this graphic on the companies developing humanoid machines.

Continue Reading

Discover more visuals with Voronoi by Visual Capitalist Logo

Training Computation of Notable AI Systems has Doubled Every 6 Months

Popular