“The supply chain and component shortage issues have finally caught up to the smartphone market, which until now seemed almost immune to this issue despite its adverse impact on many other adjacent industries,” said Nabila Popal, a research director at IDC. Research firm Canalys had also estimated an identical decline in smartphone shipments last month, blaming chip shortages for it. IDC says smartphone vendors are also facing other manufacturing and logistical challenges due to stricter rules in place to control the spread of the coronavirus. The firm doesn’t expect these issues to ease off until well into next year, so we might be in for bigger slowdowns in the coming times. Region-wise breakdown of the decline in smartphone shipments during Q3 2021 also reveals a few interesting details. Markets like the US, Western Europe, and China are given more priority by vendors, so these regions witnessed a smaller decline. IDC is estimating a 0.2 percent, 4.6 percent, and 4.4 percent YoY decline in shipments in these three markets respectively. Meanwhile, in markets like Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and China), the YoY declines were much more pronounced at 23.2 percent and 11.6 percent respectively.
Samsung suffered the biggest decline in Q3 2021
Samsung was the biggest smartphone vendor in the world during Q3 2021, shipping 69 million units globally. However, it also suffered the biggest YoY decline in shipments (14.2 percent) this past quarter. The company had reportedly shipped a whopping 80.4 million smartphones during the same period last year. Apple, which launched the iPhone 13 series in mid-September, registered an impressive 20.8 percent YoY growth in shipments during the period between July to September 2021. This allowed the Cupertino giant to leapfrog Xiaomi into the second spot. The Chinese firm witnessed a 4.6 percent YoY decline in shipments during the third quarter. It had reportedly posted “high double-digit growth” over the previous four quarters. Oppo and Vivo make up the top five smartphone vendors in Q3 2021. The two firms saw their shipments grow 8.6 percent and 5.8 percent YoY respectively this past quarter. You can check out all the latest numbers in the table (and graph) below.
