The global smartphone and tablet market is facing a bad time as shipment are not so high. The global smartphone market appears to be better than the tablet market. For the tablet market, analysts predicts that its decline will persist into 2023. IDC’s latest report shows that this year’s global smartphone shipments will decrease by 6.5% to $1.27 billion. Furthermore the report predicts that prices will increase by 6.3%. The main reason is that due to the influence of inflation and geopolitics, consumer demand has been greatly suppressed.
According to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker from International Data Corporation (IDC), the latest forecast is down 3 percentage points from the previous forecast. However, analysts also claims the setback is only short-term, and the market will rebound in 2023. IDC predicts that it will rebound with an annual growth rate of 5.2%, and a 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.4% in the long run.
IDC analysts speak
Nabila Popal, research director of IDC’s Worldwide Mobile and Consumer Device Tracker, said:
The supply constraints that have weighed on the market since last year have eased. The industry has turned to a demand-constrained market. Channel inventory is high, demand is low, and there are no immediate signs of recovery, which has OEMs panicking and slashing orders for 2022. Events over the past 12 months have reduced our market forecast for the second quarter of 2021 by 150 million units. Average price (ASP) rose 10% year over year in the second quarter and would likely grow 6.3% for the full year, despite declining volumes.
Popal added
High-end smartphones ($800+) have proven resilient in the midst of economic turmoil. They managed to increase their share of the overall smartphone market by 4 percentage points to 16% and continuing to grow. That includes foldables, the fastest-growing segment right now, with shipments of foldables expected to grow 70% year-over-year to 13.5 million units by 2022.
The differences may be relatively large in terms of regions. IDC believes that the North American market will be less affected, while the Chinese market, Central and Eastern Europe and other regions will be more affected. The organization said
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will decline by 17.4% in 2022, while Asia Pacific (excluding Japan and China), which was previously forecast to grow by 3.0%, is expected to decline by 4.5% in 2022. However, the biggest drop in sales is in the Chinese market. In this market, we expect sales to drop by 12.5% to about 41 million units. This accounts for nearly half of this year’s overall sales decline.
They added
In contrast, developed markets such as North America (US and Canada) and Western Europe are expected to perform much better in 2022. The U.S. market will be relatively flat, up 0.3% year-on-year, while the Canadian market will be slightly better, up 3.2% year-on-year. Western Europe will only see a slight 0.7% decline.
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IDC believes that worldwide 5G device shipments will grow 23.6% year over year in 2022. It will also account for more than half (54%) of all shipments with 688 million devices and an ASP of $616. In the long term, 5G models are expected to reach a 79% market share in 2026 with an ASP of $444. In comparison, 4G ASP will reach $176 in 2022. IDC believes it will drop to $106 by the end of the year. As a result, overall smartphone ASP will drop from $413 in 2022 to $373 in 2026.
“The resilience of the upper market is a testament to the success of iOS, which has not seen a decline in full-year shipments since 2019,” said Anthony Scarcella, research director for IDC’s Worldwide Mobile and Consumer Device Tracker. He adds
“Despite the overall market slipped, iOS shipments will maintain growth of 0.5% in 2022. Also, the operating system will show minimal growth throughout the forecast period, with asp hovering above $950. As for the world’s most popular operating system, Android, 2022 will see a decline of nearly 8% but will rebound strongly with 6.2% growth in 2023. Unfortunately, the low-end segment will not fare well in 2022, with android device shipments under $200 leading the way. The good news is that sales of devices over $1,000 were up 35.2%, thanks to the success of high-end flagships and recent foldable devices in the market.”
IDC: Worldwide PC and tablet shipments to decline further in 2022 and 2023
According to the latest forecast report of the International Data Corporation (IDC) worldwide, personal computing devices, the PC and tablet market is about to usher in a period of turmoil. IDC expects worldwide traditional PC shipments to decline 12.8% to 305.3 million units in 2022. In addition, tablet shipments will drop 6.8% to 156.8 million units. There are three main reasons for the decline of shipments over the next two years. The reasons are inflation, a weak global economy, and a surge in purchases.
IDC noted that further contraction is expected in 2023 as consumer demand slows. This couples with the fact that demand for education has been largely met, macroeconomic conditions is deteriorating. Furthermore, the corporate demand is also declining. The market for PCs and tablets will likely decline by 2.6% in 2023 before returning to growth in 2024.
Jitesh Ubrani, research manager at IDC Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, said that “although demand is slowing, the outlook for shipments is still higher than pre-pandemic levels.”
“As economic headwinds accelerate, we expect deteriorating consumer sentiment to lead to a further contraction in the consumer market over the next six quarters,” added Linn Huang, vice president of research for devices and displays. Some of the growth in our forecast for the outside years. While sales will not peak at the time of the pandemic, we expect the consumer market to move towards the higher end of the market.”
