Chip shortage causes smartphone sales to drop 6.8%

In one word: Global smartphone sales fell 6.8% in the third quarter of the year, but the drop wasn’t due to falling demand – blame the chip crisis. However, it was a positive third quarter for Apple, which has been ahead of Xiaomi to take the second largest market share behind the leader Samsung.

The data comes from the latest version from Gartner. market intelligence report. The research company notes that the depressingly familiar problem of chip shortages has caused smartphone sales to end users to drop 6.8% year-on-year.

“Despite strong consumer demand, smartphone sales declined due to product launch delays, a longer delivery schedule and insufficient inventory in the channel,” said Anshul Gupta, senior director of research at Gartner. “Supply constraints affected the production schedule of basic and utility smartphones much more than premium smartphones.”

Gartner specifies radio frequency and power management ICs as short-supply components that delayed production and impacted sales. However, there was good news for phone companies, as premium phones grew in popularity during the quarter despite the overall drop in sales.

As for the top five, Samsung maintained its position at number one with 69 million sales despite seeing its market share fall by 1.9% year-on-year. The Korean firm was favored by strong demand for its Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 devices.

Apple (48 million) was slightly ahead of Xiaomi (44 million). Gartner writes that updates to the iPhone 13 line, such as the A15 bionic camera and sensor, combined with Apple’s trade-in programs helped drive sales. Xiaomi, for its part, continued its expansion in Europe and the Middle East.

In fourth place, Vivo posted the highest annual growth with an increase of 20.9% to 36 million. The third Chinese manufacturer on the list, OPPO, ranked fifth with 33 million sales.

While last year’s crashes gave a boost to smartphone sales, most of the decline in the third quarter of 2021 can be attributed to the chip crisis, which is affecting virtually all consumer electronics products ( and vehicle) out there, from more and more expensive graphics cards for consoles. It has even led some manufacturers to sell gaming PCs. no dedicated GPUs.

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