Due to a large number of issues, the economy declined heavily this year. Inflation rose throughout the world.
Canalys has released its quarterly smartphone shipment report. For the second quarter of the year, Samsung and Apple are back in the leading position after a reign of Chinese smartphone companies took over for some time. This includes Huawei and Xiaomi before the former got banned from its existence.
Compared to Samsung’s performance in the first quarter, the company shipped nearly 4 million more phones with an increase of 3% market share. Meanwhile, Apple also appears to have the same lead ratio, a 3% increase in market share, and about 4 million phones shipped worldwide.
Despite Samsung and Apple showing growth within the recent two quarters, both companies actually fell short compared to 2021. Q2 2022 recorded a total of 287 million smartphones shipped worldwide, the lowest record since Q2 2020. That’s when the pandemic was first felt.
Samsung’s shortcomings were due to inventory issues. “Despite 6% annual growth, Samsung’s shipments fell 16% on the previous quarter as the vendor struggled with unhealthy inventory levels, especially in the mid-range.” On the other hand, strong demands for the iPhone 13 in Europe, China, and North America helped solidify Apple’s current position in smartphone shipment rankings.
Samsung and Apple had an annual growth of 6% and 8% respectively while Chinese companies, particularly Xiaomi, fell down to 25%. Interestingly, it’s the Chinese companies that have distinctly lower annual growth, with Xiaomi being hit the hardest, followed by Oppo (which includes OnePlus) and Vivo. Overall, the annual growth has declined to 9% since the previous year’s second quarter.
Canalys forecasted that the decline will continue for some time and that demand won’t increase significantly due to a number of issues including geopolitics, economy, and consumer confidence. “There will be increasing tensions throughout the entire smartphone supply chain as demand weakness will likely continue for an extended period,” said Zhu.
“The market is experiencing exceptionally challenging business conditions. Vendors should improve transparency when working with component suppliers and channel partners in the following quarters. Geopolitical issues, a dip in consumer confidence and high inflation will continue to damage future market performance, despite upcoming new launches and festival sales in the second half of 2022,” Zhu added.