On January 28, Canalys released its latest report on the smartphone market in 2021.
In 2021, the Chinese mainland smartphone market has experienced a year of ups and downs. After the aggressive first quarter of shipments, manufacturers in the second and third quarters have adjusted the pace of listing. In the fourth quarter, the year-end answer sheet was delivered at a year-on-year growth rate of 3%, with shipments reaching 86.6 million units and more than 333 million units shipped in the whole year, up slightly 1% year-on-year, and the market still shrank by more than 10% compared with the pre-epidemic 2019 market.
Canalys predicts that the Chinese market will remain the world's largest high-end market in 2022, with the Chinese mobile phone market contributing 30% of the world's product shipments of more than $500.
The high-end strategy that Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have vigorously promoted in recent years has also become a new bright spot in China's smartphone market. Especially in 2021, Chinese mobile phone brands, including Xiaomi, Huawei, and OPPO, have launched folding screen products. Canalys believes that the folding screen will become a new track for Android manufacturers to compete with Apple, and there are also differences in the pursuit of folding screen experience by various manufacturers, helping manufacturers attract the attention of high-end early adopters.
At the same time, Canalys believes that it will be difficult for the Chinese mobile phone market to see more than 400 million units shipped a year before 2018. However, with the growing innovation and influence of Chinese mobile phone brands in the global mobile phone market, china's high-end market in 2022 will usher in a grand situation of hundreds of controversies.
However, in the future, China's mobile phone market will also face many challenges. The first is the supply side, the current global is facing a chip shortage environment. However, because China is the world's largest smartphone market, it has mature and perfect industrial support. Therefore, I believe that Chinese mobile phone brands should be able to overcome the problem of chip shortage.
On the other hand, the growth bottleneck of China's mobile phone market is mainly on the demand side. The challenge for manufacturers is how to achieve breakthrough innovation in both hardware technology and experience in the mature category of smart phones, so as to accelerate the mid-to-high-end user replacement cycle.
If you look closely at this research report, you will find that there are also many highlights.
Apple shipped 21.5 million units in the fourth quarter with the release of the iPhone 13 series, regaining its first laurel since the first quarter of 2015. Apple's share of the Chinese market has reached its historical peak since entering China in 2009, accounting for a quarter of total market shipments. "In the fourth quarter of the overall retail market decline, Apple unexpectedly lowered the listing price of new product series, which greatly stimulated the demand for replacement machines. At the same time, the absence of strong competitors in the high-end market also contributed to Apple's record-breaking performance this quarter. Canalys said.
The second is Xiaomi. In the case of industry-wide supply shortage, Xiaomi mobile phones in 2021, the Chinese market shipments achieved double-digit growth, the market share ranked third.
According to Canalys report, Xiaomi mobile phones in 2021, the Chinese market shipments reached 50.5 million, an increase of 27% year-on-year, the market share of 15%, ranking third. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Xiaomi mobile phones shipped 13.5 million units in the Chinese market, an increase of 10% year-on-year and a market share of 16%. At the same time, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Xiaomi is also the only mobile phone manufacturer other than Apple to increase shipments sequentially. Canalys analyzed that this is due to the increase in the popularity of Xiaomi's new flagship products.
Under the background of the shrinking market, Xiaomi's market share in China accounted for 15% in 2021, compared with a net increase of 3 percentage points in 2020, and its market share was further expanded.
Canalys analyzed that shipments and average unit prices in the Chinese market have been steadily rising, which will undoubtedly attract strong competitors to challenge Apple's dominance in the high-end market. In fact, throughout 2021, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have made significant progress in their high-end production lines, among which Xiaomi launched xiaomi 12 series of new products, continuing to compete for the high-end market, the response is strong, the first sale of 5 minutes broke 1.8 billion, the growth potential can not be underestimated.
The high-end mobile phone market in 2022 will definitely be more exciting.