China’s 2022 smartphone sales and shipments lowest in a decade

China noticed smartphone sales stoop 14% in 2022, marking the fifth consecutive 12 months of decline, in keeping with a Friday report by Hong Kong-headquartered consultancy agency Counterpoint.

Why it issues: Chinese smartphone sales reached their lowest stage in a decade as customers delayed changing their smartphones on account of sluggish macroeconomic circumstances and Covid-19 containment measures.

• China’s smartphone business nonetheless faces powerful challenges in the brief time period amid provide chain disruption and weak shopper confidence, with gradual enchancment anticipated in the second half of 2023, in keeping with Chinese consultancy CINNO Research.

Details: The high three corporations in the Chinese smartphone market final 12 months had been Vivo, Apple, and Oppo, holding 19.2%, 18%, and 17.5% of the market respectively.

• Huawei’s former subsidiary, Honor, was the one model to file year-on-year sales development in 2022, up 38% from the earlier 12 months. The report famous that the model’s robust development was largely on account of its low base in 2021.
• Despite Apple’s sales decline in China, the US tech big was the second-largest cell phone model in the nation for the complete 12 months, with a 3% year-on-year drop in sales. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Apple achieved its “highest quarterly share ever” in China at 23.7%, the report famous.
• Foxconn’s main plant in the central Chinese metropolis of Zhengzhou, the world’s largest iPhone manufacturing unit, was hit by vital employee unrest associated to Covid outbreaks and fee points in the fourth quarter, which pressured Apple to delay shipments of its iPhone 14 sequence. 
• Huawei outperformed rival manufacturers in the October-December interval. While all different high manufacturers noticed double-digit share sales drops, the Chinese tech big’s sales grew 15%.
• China smartphone sales plunged 11% throughout Singles’ Day 2022, the biggest on-line purchasing competition and normally the height sales interval, Counterpoint mentioned in a November report.

Context: Chinese smartphone shipments additionally replicate an unsure market, with complete shipments of about 286 million items in 2022, down 13.2% from a 12 months earlier and the biggest drop ever, market analysis agency IDC mentioned on Sunday. This is the primary time shipments have fallen under 300 million since 2013.

• The stoop in China’s smartphone market can be in line with the business’s international efficiency. IDC information exhibits international smartphone shipments dropped 11.3% from the earlier 12 months to about 1.2 billion items in 2022, the lowest determine in a decade.