Smartphone shipments plunge 11% in Q1’22 on war, covid, inflation

BY ONOME AMUGE

The global smartphone market for the first quarter of 2022 recorded its steepest decline since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 as broad market uncertainty and slow demand wreaked havoc on smartphone shipments which dropped 11 per cent year-on-year.

A recent report by leading tech market research firm Canalys, attributed the decline to vendor uncertainty triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war, Covid lockdown in China and soaring global inflation.

Despite the downturn in smartphone penetration rate, the report showed that Samsung and Apple grew their market shares year on year to emerge the two leading smartphone brands globally.

Samsung gained 24 percent market share in the first quarter of 2022, 22 percent above the first quarter of 2021.

The South Korean giant was noted to have reclaimed the top spot in large part due to strong sales recorded by the flagship Galaxy S22 series, underpinned by a spike in demand for the Galaxy A and M series devices.

Meanwhile, Apple recorded three percent year-on-year growth, from 15 percent in Q1 2021 to 18 percent in Q1 2022.

Canalys noted that the 2022 iPhone SE brand was an important mid-range volume driver for Apple. It was also disclosed that sales of the iPhone 13 series were still going strong into 2022.

By contrast, other brands in the top five slots, including Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively, all posted a decline in market share volume for the period under review.

Xiaomi and Oppo saw a one percent drop in their year-on-year market share, while Vivo slid two percent.

Nicole Peng, Canalys vice-president of mobility, said in the report that phone vendors were faced with major uncertainty due to the Russia-Ukraine war, China’s rolling lockdowns and the threat of inflation, all combining to the slow season demand.

Peng added that an economic slowdown in China has magnified the issue of finding an adequate supply of components for the country’s leading domestic smartphone brands, especially for Oppo and Vivo, which shipped up to 70 percent of their smartphones to their home market.

The global smartphone market in 2021 recorded a four percent growth, the first time since 2017, with annual shipments rising to 1.39 billion units. Analysts in the tech industry had projected that the upward trend would continue in 2022, on expectations of market recovery and increased economic activities post-Covid.

Though the Canalys report did not provide volume figures, it offered relief to phonemakers, saying the component shortage plaguing the industry could improve sooner than expected. This, it said, could help relieve cost pressures and likely to see the industry bounce back in the next couple of quarters.