The Chinese smartphone sector is sinking like we haven’t seen in a decade

Smartphone sales in China plummeted, and in the second quarter the country returned to numbers last seen in 2012, when Samsung launched the Galaxy S 3 and Apple launched the iPhone 5. Since then, there has been a lot of rain.

Analyst at Counterpoint Research his Q2 2022 study found that around 60 million smartphones were sold during the quarter.which is less than half of the fourth quarter of 2016 in China, a record year for the sector.

As expected, the COVID-19 pandemic has been cited as a major cause of the fall, apart from many other reasons.

“The Chinese economy grew just 0.4 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2022, below market expectations in the 0.8 to 1 percent range.Ivan Lam, lead analyst, said.

The reason for this slowdown was lockdowns in major Chinese cities. which resulted in Chinese consumers stopping spending money in many sectors, as expected when they were not allowed to leave the house.

The high penetration rates of smartphones did not help either. by Lam. Large online sales at the end of the quarter caused sales to rise, but this growth was 10% lower than last year.

Vivo maintains its place at the top of the Chinese smartphone marketbut its market share of 19.8% has declined significantly.

HONOR increased its market share by over 100% year-over-year, from 7.7% to 18.3%.. Apple also managed to increase its share by just one point. Chinese brands Oppo, Huawei and Xiaomi lost some of their share.

Only Huawei has a non-pandemic excuse, since it sold HONOR and reduced its range. Xiaomi managed to improve its results in June, perhaps a sign that the second half of 2022 will bring better days.

Lam said that foldable phones could also push buyers to upgradehence the desire of all companies to launch a folding model at its best.

All this could be good news Because if Chinese manufacturers cut volumes to meet subdued local expectations, supply chain problems could lessen for buyers in other countries.