Shipments for smartphones continue to decline as the year progresses. It has dropped to almost 302 million units in the third quarter of 2022. Some experts believe that this decline will not stop any time soon, as this year has seen a 9.7% drop compared to last year. However, Counterpoint Research reported a lower decline in shipments at 12%, compared to the third quarter of 2021.
A report from the International Data Corporation says that some manufacturers reduced their inventories on purpose. However, most declines in emerging markets have been affected due to inflation and rising costs, as mentioned in CNET.
Affected Manufacturers
Despite Samsung's 7.8% year-over-year decline, the tech giant is still ahead of all the other manufacturers at a 24.2% share. Apple is the only manufacturer that did not suffer a decline. However, the iPhone producer only comes in second in the third quarter share, with 17.2%.
Xiaomi has been catching up with a 13.4% share, but has seen a decline of 8.6%. Chinese manufacturers have seen the most damage in this year's economic crisis. Vivo and Oppo both have 8.6% shares in this third quarter of 2022. Both have also seen a 22.1% and 22.3% decline, respectively, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).
According to the IDC's preliminary data, this year's decline marks the biggest 3rd quarter decline. It is also the fifth consecutive decline per quarter for the smartphone market, which is a result of weakened global demands.
The shipment differences between Q3 of 2022 and Q3 of 2021 are the following, respectively:
Samsung (64 million from 69.5 million)
Apple (51.9 million from 51.1 million)
Xiaomi (40.5 million from 44.3 million)
Vivo (25.9 million from 33.3 million)
Oppo (25.8 million from 33.2 million)
Others (93.6 million from 102.7 million)
That's a total of 301.9 million shipments for the third quarter of 2022, compared to 334.2 million shipments from the third quarter of 2021.
International Data Corporation Statement
Nabila Popal, a research director with the worldwide tracker team of IDC, said that the decline in demand is due to inflation and rising cost. This has affected consumers with lesser disposable incomes. She also added that shipments and orders of original equipment manufacturers were reduced, to attempt to deplete their inventory. This is in concern to the high inventory that's coming into the quarter.
Despite Apple being able to avoid decline, they will still face challenges. This goes especially for China, because of its poor macroeconomic situation. The IDC believed that 2022 will expect a steeper shipment decline, as soft recovery will be pushed further to 2023.
Ryan Reith, the vice president of the IDC's Worldwide Mobile and Consumer Device Trackers, said that they were seeing unique dynamics unfold across the globe. With smartphone sales, the developed markets that sell premium and more expensive devices are staying afloat. As for emerging markets that sell smartphones for an exponentially cheaper cost, they are the most impacted by the declines.
IDC believes that this could be made possible by the expansion of installment plans offered by telecommunication companies. This also goes with retail channels and even from vendors directly.
