Dumbphones are Making a Comeback in the Phone Market

Just a few days ago, the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, surprised everyone when he showed off his new mobile phone at an event.

It wasn’t the latest iPhone, or a foldable Samsung, or any other high-end handset. On the contrary, what he pulled out of your pocket was a clamshell phone, a non-smartphone with no internet connection. In other words, a dumbphone.

He made this gesture in response to something that was happening while he was making his speech. The Chilean president criticised all those in the audience who were more focused on their smartphones than on his words.

‘In the first two rows there are 16 people seated. Of those 16, 11 have been looking at their mobile phones permanently during this little while. And of the government authorities I identified, I saw 10 who were permanently checking their mobile phones. I invite you to raise your eyes’, said the president, as reported by Clarín.

The president acknowledged that the same thing happens to him, which is why he has bought a dumbphone, in order to make a ‘technological transition’ before becoming a father, as he is expecting his first child.

Responding to hyper-connectivity

Forgetting the smartphone and replacing it with a dumbphone is an extreme reaction many people are taking in response to the hyper-connectivity of their lives and society in general.

Boric’s reaction is not an isolated event, but social networks such as LinkedIn have been plagued this Christmas with posts from people who have done the same, taking advantage of this time of year to buy themselves or ask the Three Wise Men for a dumbphone to try to disconnect and ‘detox’.

This is perhaps an extreme measure, but very necessary in many cases. According to data compiled by Statista, the average daily internet usage time of Spanish users is 5 hours and 42 minutes. And almost half (48.2%) spend between one and four hours a day connected to the internet via their mobile phones, according to the same portal.

As a result, more and more people are trying to disconnect. According to the ‘Estudio Generación SPCial sobre hábitos de desconexión digital de los jóvenes españoles’, carried out by SPC and Pantallas Amigas, 12.2% of young people consider using dumbphones as a possibility. And 1 in 5 (19.5%) know someone who has already taken this step.

Likewise, more than half of those surveyed (56.5%) have considered a ‘digital detox’ and 6 out of 10 know someone who has joined this trend.

And as an intermediate step between disconnection and hyperconnectivity, many people are opting to install a launcher that allows them to simplify and ‘tone up’ their mobiles, such as Minimalist Phone, Dumbify, Olauncher or Indistract, which reduce the content of the home screen to a minimum, with no icons and only essential functions, such as time, calls or music.

What are dumbphones?

The term ‘dumbphones’ is used in contrast to smartphones because, unlike smartphones, dumbphones are ‘dumb’ in the sense that they can not only make calls, receive calls, send SMS and, at most, take photos.

In other words, they are reduced to basic functionalities, eliminating the problems related to hyperconnectivity, linked to the use of the internet, messaging applications, social networks and productivity and work environment programmes, as indicated in this article by experts from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC).

‘They may have a touch screen or colour screen, but they lack those functionalities that help us to be more connected,’ explains Silvia Martínez, professor at the Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences and director of the UOC’s Master’s degree in Social Media.

Her colleague César Córcoles, professor at the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications and director of the UOC’s Master’s Degree in Website and Web Application Development, specifies that ‘their marketing is aimed at older people who have not adapted to smartphones and prefer to use a “traditional” terminal’.

However, given the current ‘detox’ trend, they may be making a mistake in their strategy, as they could be very well received by parents worried about their children’s screen addiction or by people who have realised that they need to disengage from technology.

‘A second market that is emerging, now that there is a widespread movement to get children and pre-teens away from screens, is the twelve to sixteen age group, with parents who would prefer to delay smartphone use until sixteen, but who do want their children to have a mobile phone,’ the professor points out.

In fact, it seems that this trend is starting to be reflected in the market. After many years of gradual contraction in dumbphone sales, the global feature phone market generated $2.351 billion in 2024 and will grow by 2.3% annually between 2024 and 2031, according to Cognitive Market Research’s Feature Phone Market Report 2025.

North America accounts for 40% of sales, with a market size of $940.5 million; while Europe accounts for 30% of global sales, some $705.4 million.

So it is very likely that in the coming months we will see more people rescuing their old mobile phones from a drawer or buying a dumbphone.

In that case, it is worth bearing in mind an aspect that many new non-smartphone users are not considering. Even if these devices are basic and do not have internet connectivity, we need to get handsets with 4G connectivity.

Currently, many of the basic phones on the market are old mobiles that do not have 4G connectivity. These devices will soon become obsolete, as some operators have already started to disconnect their 3G antennas, while the complete disconnection of the 2G network will take some time.