The latest IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker forecast said that global smartphone shipments will decline by 3.5% in 2022. Due to a consecutive decline in quarterly shipments, IDC projected 1.31 billion units of smartphone shipments this year.
Global Smartphone Shipment Declines Due to Supply and Demand Issues
With the forecasted decline in global smartphone shipments, IDC also reduced its projection for 2022. It previously forecast 1.6 billion shipments. As for the reasons for the declining smartphone shipments, IDC cited several issues. These include weakening demand, inflation, supply chain constraints, and geopolitical tensions. All of these impacted smartphone vendors.
The lockdowns hit global demand and supply simultaneously by reducing demand in the largest market globally and tightening the bottleneck to an already challenged supply chain. As a result, many OEMs cut back orders for this year, including Apple and Samsung.
Apple Will Be The Least Affected By The Decline in Smartphone Shipments
IDC included Apple as one of the vendors impacted by the lockdowns that affected manufacturing plants. However, compared with other vendors Apple will be the least affected. Nabila Popal, IDC Research Director. noted that Apple has greater control over its supply chain.
Apple appears to be the least impacted vendor due to greater control over its supply chain and because the majority of its customers in the high-priced segment are less influenced by macroeconomic issues like inflation. Barring any new setbacks, we expect these challenges to ease by the end of this year and the market to recover in 2023 with 5% growth.
Foxconn recently confirmed that iPhone 14 production was in full swing despite the continued lockdowns in China. If the company would be able to meet supply requirements, Apple will be able to ship expected orders of the new iPhone.
All Will Be Well By The End of the Year
Despite the bleak forecast in global smartphone shipments due to various global issues, IDC still expects the challenges to ease up by the end of the year. Hence, IDC believes that the smartphone market will recover in 2023, projecting a 5% growth.