Only 301 million: the smartphone market again set an anti-record in the 3rd quarter

Analytical agency Counterpoint has released another quarterly report on the smartphone market - now for

July-September 2022.It looks no less sad than the previous ones: smartphone sales fell by 12%, amounting to only 301 million units against 342 million a year earlier.This is the worst result of the third quarter since 2014, when smartphones were just coming into use in developing countries.However, compared to the previous quarter, when 294.5 million units were sold, there was a slight revival - but this is a typical annual process associated with the release of new iPhones and Galaxy Z.

By the way, the new iPhone allowed Apple to becomethe only growing brand in the top 5: the company sold 45.8 million smartphones compared to 45 million a year earlier. But the divisions of BBK, Vivo and OPPO, synchronously fell by 23% (OPPO includes OnePlus, but not Realme). However, their decline has somewhat slowed down due to growing sales in Russia, where they are reaping the benefits of the withdrawal of Apple and Samsung from the market. The same goes for Xiaomi, whose sales decline was a substantial 9%.

In general, analysts do not single out any singlereasons for falling sales, instead citing a whole combination of factors. As Senior Analyst Harmeet Singh Walia says: “Increasing Russian military action in Ukraine, ongoing political distrust and tensions between the US and China, rising inflationary pressures in many regions, growing recessionary fears, and the depreciation of many national currencies are leading to a further deterioration in consumer sentiment. dealing a blow to an already weakening demand. This is added to the slowly but surely increasing lifecycle of smartphones becoming more reliable and slower to evolve.”

© Ilya Nerybov.

According to Counterpoint