Bad news on the smartphone front. The market, which was to continue its recovery after the impact of the Covid in 2020, will once again plunge into a slump. After a 5.7% rebound in 2021, global sales are expected to fall 3.5% this year to 1.31 billion units, according to IDC. The firm had previously expected an increase of 1.6%.
IDC lowered its forecast due to four headwinds: weakening demand, inflation, geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions. Smartphone sales have already been in decline for three consecutive quarters, and the challenges facing this industry are only growing.
VOS INDICES
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Little impact for Apple
” The impact of the lockdowns in China, which have no clear end in sight, is the most important factor, comments Nabila Popal, analyst at IDC. They hit demand and supply simultaneously by reducing demand in China, the world’s largest market, and tightening bottlenecks in an already difficult supply chain. As a result, many manufacturers have reduced production for this year, including Apple and Samsung. “
Apple, however, appears to be the least affected brand due to better control over its supply chain and because the majority of its customers in the high price segment are less influenced by macroeconomic issues such as inflation, says the analyst.
Towards an alleviation of the chip shortage
According to IDC, the shortage of chips should ease in the second half of 2022 due to the market migration to 5G, where the supply of components is less restricted than in 4G. Sales of 5G smartphones are expected to grow 25.5% to nearly 700 million units to account for 53% of total shipments this year. In the long term, 5G should concern 78% of sales in 2026.
Smartphone sales are expected to register the biggest decline in Central and Eastern Europe, with shipments declining by 22%. They are expected to fall by 11.5% in China and 1% in Western Europe, while they are expected to grow in most other regions.
This pessimistic vision tends to become generalized. The firm Counterpoint predicts a market decline of 3% to 1.36 billion units, and Strategy Analytics a fall of 4.2% to 1.30 billion units.
