Oliver Haslam·

Global Smartphone Shipments Expected To Decline 3.5% In 2022 But Apple Will Fare Best

A new report claims that global smartphone shipments will fall by around 3.5% in 2022, shrinking to around 1.31 billion units. However, it’s thought that Apple will be the least impacted among the major smartphone manufacturers.

Citing ongoing challenges in terms of supply and demand, IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker forecasts the shrink in smartphone shipments.

With ongoing manufacturing issues impacting factories around the world and part shortages continuing to be a factor, it’s thought that companies may struggle to get devices built. However, demand is also thought to be on the wane, with the current rate of inflation worldwide thought to impact buying power.

“The ongoing semiconductor supply issues will ease up in the second half of 2022. On the SoC side, 4G SoC supply has been tight, but the market continues to shift towards 5G SoCs,” said Phil Solis, research director in IDC’s Enabling Technologies and Semiconductors team. “The bigger problem has been the tight supply of components such as PMICs, display drivers, and discrete Wi-Fi chips. Capacity is being increased for these semiconductors that are made in higher process nodes and newer versions of Wi-Fi chips are being made with newer process nodes. At the same time, demand is dropping. Combined, these supply and demand changes will put the market more in equilibrium.”

However, Apple is thought to be the company that will come out of the situation with the smallest impact, although it’s already been reported that the iPhone 14 Max development and early production are behind schedule due to supply constraints.

Apple is expected to announce four new iPhones in or around September, although it isn’t clear yet just how difficult those devices might be to actually buy.

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