U-turn down again, domestic mobile phone shipments plummeted by more than 30% in February
After several months of rapid growth, domestic mobile phone shipments suddenly turned downward in February, and it seems that the Spring Festival is a bit "not prosperous in the peak season".
On March 26, data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed that domestic mobile phone shipments in February were 14.257 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 32.9%. In February, domestic brand mobile phone shipments were 11.842 million units, down 32.5% year-on-year, and domestic 5G mobile phone shipments were 12.532 million units, down 29.2% year-on-year.
This is the first year-on-year decline in domestic mobile phone shipments since August last year. From August last year to January this year, domestic mobile phone shipments increased by 0.03%, 59.0%, 19.7%, 34.3%, 1.5% and 68.1% respectively.
In February this year, domestic mobile phone shipments of 14.257 million units fell 55.1% from 31.778 million units in January, which was not only lower than the 21.260 million units in February last year, but also lower than the 14.864 million units in February 2022 and 21.759 million units in February 2021, hitting a new low in three years.
Source: China Academy of Information and Communications Technology
In recent years, the ceiling of mobile phone industry shipments has loomed, and the past two years have been particularly sluggish due to the macro environment. However, since last September, after manufacturers such as Huawei and Apple released new phones, the mobile phone market began to pick up, and manufacturers such as Xiaomi OV Honor have also launched a fierce involution, Xiaomi 14 series, vivo X100 series and OPPO Find X7 series, etc., have restored a lot of vitality to the entire market.
Entering 2024, the mobile phone market will present "ice and fire". According to data released by Counterpoint, China's smartphone sales fell 7% year-on-year in the first six weeks of this year. Among them, Huawei's mobile phones have the strongest upward momentum, rushing to the second place in China with a growth rate of 64% and a share of 17%, while Honor ranks third with a growth rate of 2% and a share of 16%, and Apple's sales plummeted by 24% to rank fourth. Among the rest of the mainstream manufacturers, the sales of vivo, which ranked first, fell by 15%, and Xiaomi and OPPO fell by 7% and 29% respectively.
2024 vs China's weekly smartphone sales share and growth in the first six weeks of 2023 Source: Counterpoint
"Consumer confidence needs to rise to stabilize the market, but given everything that's happening right now, especially in the real estate sector, it's going to be a tough challenge," said Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research. The agency expects the overall growth of the domestic mobile phone market to continue to be negative in the first quarter of 2024 due to weak consumer spending and fewer new product launches.
"When the market becomes more and more mediocre, consumer attention will be reduced and the replacement cycle will be longer. Recently, Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, also said frankly in an interview with the observer.com, "Back ten years ago, there were 450 million to 500 million mobile phone smart terminals a year (sales), so what we imagine is not how a strong opponent comes in, but how we can work together to make the industry full of vitality and innovation, and make the entire industry bigger." ”
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