The downturn in the global smartphone market highlights the need for companies to focus on the Value segment and Services as the Middle Market disappears. iPhones are now 49% of the booming second-hand market, allowing Apple to gain more Services revenue via its App Store.
Chemicals and the Economy
US housing bubble starts to deflate as prices peak and mortgage rates rise
The Fed might change its mind and rush to support asset markets again. But that seems unlikely today. If it doesn’t, then debt, divorce and death will force an increasing number of people to sell their home. And if buyers continue to disappear, then sellers will have to continue cutting prices in order to try and achieve a sale, as the bubble finally bursts.
Companies ignore the Perennials 55+ generation at their peril
Nearly a third of the the world’s High Income population are now in the Perennials 55+ generation. Yet companies mostly ignore their needs – assuming that all they want are walking sticks and sanitary pads. Instead, they continue to focus on the relatively declining number of younger people. No wonder many companies are going bankrupt, and […]
China’s renminbi and the global ring of fire
China’s property bubble puts it at the epicentre of the ring of fire © Reuters China’s devaluation could be the trigger for an international debt crisis, as I describe in my latest post for the Financial Times, published on the BeyondBrics blog August has often seen the start of major debt crises. The Latin American […]
From subprime to stimulus…and now social division
The blog has now been running for 12 years since the first post was written from Thailand at the end of June 2007. A lot has happened since then: There was the 2008 subprime financial crisis, one of the blog’s early forecasting successes This led to the publication of ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal: […]
CEOs need new business models amid downturn
Many indicators are now pointing towards a global downturn in the economy, along with paradigm shifts in demand patterns. CEOs need to urgently build resilient business models to survive and prosper in this New Normal world, as I discuss in my 2019 Outlook and video interview with ICIS. Global recession is the obvious risk as we start […]
BASF’s second profit warning highlights scale of the downturn now underway
The chemical industry is easily the best leading indicator for the global economy. And thanks to Kevin Swift and his team at the American Chemistry Council, we already have data showing developments up to October, as the chart shows. It confirms that consensus hopes for a “synchronised global recovery” at the beginning of the year […]
Global smartphone recession confirms consumer downturn
Q3 smartphone sales data show the global market in recession, as Strategy Analytics confirmed: “The global smartphone market has now declined for four consecutive quarters and is effectively in a recession.” The warning signs began in Q1, when the market plateaued for the first time, as discussed here in May: “The global smartphone market has […]
Chemicals flag rising risk of synchronised global slowdown
Chemicals are easily the best leading indicator for the global economy. And if the global economy was really in recovery mode, as policymakers believe, then the chemical industry would be the first to know – because of its early position in the value chain. Instead, it has a different message as the chart confirms: It […]
West faces “demographic deficit” as populations age
Rising life expectancy, and falling fertility rates, mean that a third of the Western population is now in the low spending 55-plus age group. Given that consumer spending is around two-thirds of the economy in developed countries, the above charts provide critically important information on the prospects for economic growth. They show official data for household […]