Shipments of smartphones within China fell 31.8% year-on-year to 14.5 million handsets in February, a government report said.
Shipments were down from about 21.3 million handsets in February 2021 and 32.4 million in January 2022, said the China Academy of Information and Communications (CAICT).
According to a Reuter report, the handset brands currently face production issues due to the global chip crisis, including delayed customer upgrades. A demand miscalculation, random factory shutdowns, and U.S.-China strains prompted several automobile companies to report chip sourcing issues.
In the meantime, China Daily said that Chinese tech company Honor Device Co's smartphone shipments have surged to make the company China's second-largest smartphone maker with a 16.7 % market share in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Counterpoint, a market research provider.
Honor now trails only Apple in China, giving it more confidence to crack international markets. Honor's Chinese peers are also ratcheting up resources to better resonate with overseas consumers, said the report.
Incidentally, according to Tech Radar's report, Apple’s key position in China helped it to account for 51% of the global smartphone sales for the first time. The shipments plunged 21.3 million handsets in February 2021 and 32.4 million in January 2022.