All is not well in the land of smartphones. The industry had been on a deceleration trend before SARS-CoV-2 entered the fray. The glory days of market expansion and biennial upgrades appear to be over, and things have only worsened after two years of financial hardship and supply chain constraints.
For all these reasons, it’s no surprise that manufacturers are pulling back production. One new report are from Korea Maeil Business News has the world’s top smartphone maker ramping up production to 30 million units for 2022. The news comes as sales have been hampered by the conflict in Ukraine. In March, the company followed fellow tech giants Microsoft and Apple by suspension of sales in Russia.
Apple is also feeling the pain. Recent Bloomberg Reports note that the iPhone maker is adjusting its plans to produce 20 million more phones by 2022. Instead, its numbers are expected to remain unchanged from 2021. Those reports follow a number of Quarterly iPhone sales have managed to fend off many of the industry’s macro trends, but the company is likely to return to Earth, even if the iPhone 14 is around the corner.
It was a perfect storm of industry and global factors that brought us to this place. Not a time for panic for the larger manufacturers – they will almost certainly come out of the dip unscathed. But there are bigger questions that remain about the industry going forward. What matters most is whether this is a lull after a decade of booming smartphone sales, or even the arrival of new technologies like foldable screens that will kickstart the comeback. back to the golden age of mobile phones.
Samsung declined to comment on the reports.
