According to DIGITIMES Research's statistics and analyses, second-quarter 2023 smartphone shipments by China-based smartphone vendors exhibited a 7.4% on-quarter growth but a 6.1% on-year decline. In the second half of 2023, China-based smartphone vendors are expected to step up their inventory preparation ahead of Singles' Day in China. Moreover, with overseas markets entering the strong season, smartphone shipments by China-based vendors are estimated to exhibit a single-digit growth consecutively for two quarters straight, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest figures from the China smartphone industry report.
The China market, which continued to be impacted by sluggish demand, had the 618 shopping festival, while overseas markets still struggled with high inflation. Seeing the markets' status, China-based smartphone brands were conservative about their shipments in the second quarter, maintaining low channel inventory.
China-based smartphone vendors shipped a total of 143 million smartphones in second-quarter 2023. The top-3 brands were Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo, each enjoyed a single-digit sequential shipment growth and together contributed 61.6% of all the volumes in the quarter, smaller than their combined share of 63.9% seen a quarter ago. The decline in their share was due to an even larger sequential increase in the combined shipments by Honor, Huawei, Transsion, Lenovo, and all other vendors, the report's figures show.
Looking into second-half 2023, China's high unemployment among youngth and migrant workers is unlikely to improve, while consumption in most parts of the world will continue to be dampened by high inflation, resulting in smartphone demand showing no sign of recovery. However, most China-based vendors will be keeping their inventory of complete smartphones in low gear for a period of time. Based on DIGITIMES Research's surveys on the supply chains and analyses on market demand, smartphone shipments by China-based vendors are expected to exhibit single-digit on-year growth in third-quarter 2023 and flat on-year growth in fourth-quarter 2023 due to a low 2022 base period.
