When we think of smartphones like the first Motorola RAZR , the Alcatel One Touch Easy or the Nokia 3310 , we all remember a time when we had hardly any worries and the most interesting thing you could do with your phone was play Snake or change its ringtones.
That era now seems to be back in different countries, as the sales of ‘ dumbphones’ , that is, those classic phones without applications or large screens (and whose batteries lasted several days) are literally selling like hotcakes.
We can extract this from a new Reddit subforum created by José Briones at the beginning of the week and which, in a few days, has already reached nearly 20,000 subscribed users.
I think you can easily see it. Certain populations of Generation Z are tired of the screens. They don’t know what’s going on with mental health and are trying to make cuts to get away from digital life.
The mobiles of the 90s and 00s
HMD Global , owner of Nokia, is one of the few companies that has opted to continue selling mobiles in the style of the 90s and early 200s, that is, with tiny screens, a physical keyboard and a battery life that many would like for their smartphone today. Interestingly, in the US, the company’s mobile phone sales have increased with tens of thousands of these terminals sold each month. At the same time, global sales of HMD’s most expensive phones fell, according to the company.
In North America, the market for dummy phones is pretty flat. But it could be quite normal for it to increase by up to 5% in the next five years.
In fact, given the unexpected success of these little phones, other companies have already sprung up in the US, like Punkt and Light, that are taking advantage of this trend, selling devices aimed at those who want to spend less time on their phones and social networks. On YouTube, we find more and more influences telling me about the benefits of these devices and encouraging them to leave the big screens.
After all, what these young people are looking for is to get away from the noise caused by social networks like Instagram TikTok that absorb a large part of their time, although they assume that, nowadays, it is impossible to work without a modern terminal to attend meetings at distance, exchange files, or communicate with co-workers.
But that does not mean that, when the workday ends, these workers remove the SIM card from their modern smartphone and insert it into one of these simple phones to enjoy their free time without digital ties.
In Spain, for the moment, there is no data on the sale of these devices, and it is very difficult, if not almost impossible, to find someone using a ‘ dumbphone ‘ on the street. However, we still have the possibility of buying this type of mobile, in the purest 90s style , in stores such as Amazon, PC components or Media Markt, thanks to the efforts of telephone companies such as HMD, Alcatel or Motorola to continue betting on these mobile so retro