The price of energy rises, the cost of the shopping basket increases… and consumption falls. A three-way rule that never fails and where practically all sectors suffer, including the sale of mobile phones. At least, this is what Qualcomm claims, one of the main suppliers of chips and modems in telephoneswith their predictions for this year.
To the excess of inventory, the low demand for telephones is added which anticipates a decline of up to double figures in smartphone sales. A situation that, apparently, could last for much of 2023. The results of this last quarter will depend, of course, on how sales behave at Christmas.
In addition, these are figures higher than those anticipated in a report last summer by the consulting firm Gartner where it assured that 9.5% fewer PCs and 7.1% fewer mobile phones would be sold in 2022.
“Given the uncertainty caused by the macroeconomic environment, we are updating our 2022 3G, 4G and 5G phone guidance (and see) a double-digit percentage decline,” company sources confirm.
Qualcomm admits that the market is experiencing a “rapid deterioration in demand” despite the “easing of supply constraints” in the semiconductor industry. The latter has led them to have a bulky inventory where their customers are unable to sell it as quickly as they would like. Among them, Samsung and Apple, whose phone sales have fallen this year.
Without going any further, Samsung had a stock of 50 million smartphones as of June 2022. For its part, Apple decided not increase production of the new iPhone 14 line, due to a drop in revenue in the previous quarter.
Qualcom anticipates that for the oversized mobile inventory to be sold -it should be remembered that during 2020 with the explosion of the pandemic sales already fell by more than 20% according to Gartner data and in 2021 pre-pandemic figures were not reached, It will take at least “a couple of quarters to resolve.”
Data for the third quarter of 2022 by brand
Qualcom’s data is in line with that published by the consulting firm Counterpoint Research, which last October already anticipated how the world market for smartphones was still in free fall. In fact, it had registered the worst third quarter since 2014 with 301.9 million units sold between July and September 2022, 12% less than the corresponding quarter of 2021.
By companies, Samsung was the company that sold the most, monopolizing 21.3% of the total market, although with a decrease of 8% year-on-year and 64 million units. It was followed by Apple, with a 16.2% market share and 48.8 million, 2% more year-on-year; Xiaomi, with 13.5% of the market, 40.5 million units sold, 9% less year-on-year; Oppo, with 9.8% of the market, 29.4 million units, 23% less; and Vivo, which captured 8.6% of the market after shipments fell 23% year-on-year to 26 million units.
