Economic Observation Network reporter Feng Qingyan mobile phone manufacturers face a more severe living environment, because the entire mobile phone market cake has shrunk significantly. On April 20, the latest data from global research agency Canalys showed that global smartphone shipments fell by 11% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022. Canalys data shows that global smartphone shipments increased 1% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of last year and 7% year-on-year for the full year last year.
In the face of double-digit contraction in shipments, "this is the reality, can only be said to be more less optimistic than previously expected," Sun Yanbiao, chairman of Rising Sun Big Data, told the Economic Observation Network reporter, "This is also the reason why oppo and vivo, mobile phone manufacturers including Apple and Android mobile phone camps, have recently cut orders to reduce shipments this year." ”
Recently, Guo Mingxi, a well-known analyst at Tianfeng Securities, said that Apple's first new machine this year, the iPhone SE, is sluggish and cut its estimated annual shipments by 10 million units; China's major Android mobile phone brands have cut orders by about 170 million units this year, accounting for 20% of the original 2022 shipment plan.
In the first quarter of this year, on the basis of the contraction of the entire market cake, the market share of mobile phone manufacturers also changed significantly. Canalys data shows that Samsung with 24% market share to beat Apple to regain the world's first throne, Apple ranked second with 18%, Xiaomi ranked third with 13%, OPPO (including OnePlus) and vivo ranked fourth and fifth with 10% and 8% respectively.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Apple was spurred by the hot sales of the iPhone 13 series, and briefly jumped to the first place in the world with a global market share of 22%. Samsung surpassed Apple again in the first quarter of this year, mainly due to improved product mix in 2022. In the second quarter of last year, Xiaomi briefly surpassed Apple to become the second place in the world with a market share of 17%, and ranked after Apple in the first quarter of this year. Xiaomi can rank third this time, thanks to the excellent performance of the Redmi Note series.
Compared with the global market, the cake of China's mobile phone market has shrunk even more. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the total shipment of domestic mobile phones in the first two months of this year was 47.9 million units, down 22.6% year-on-year. Affected by 5G mobile phone sales, the previous annual domestic mobile phone shipments in 2021 reached 351 million units, up from 308 million units in 2020, but compared with 560 million units in 2016, it was a sharp decline.
Sun Yanbiao found that while the entire market cake shrank, mobile phone manufacturers were more "rolled" on the launch of new products. As for OPPO and vivo, they also began to do tablet computers, "In fact, the profits of tablet computers are quite meager, and they should be done mainly to ensure revenue, but also to give channels a diversified product line to sell." Sun Yanbiao told reporters.
In the near future, consumers will usher in a wave of new mobile phone products bombardment, not only Huawei, Xiaomi and vivo and other big brands to issue new machines, some small brands have also joined this wave of new product releases.