A Weibo page about the death of a student in Chengdu with 1.72 billion views is displayed on a mobile phone in Beijing, China, on May 13, 2021. Ng Han Guan/AP Photo
China’s smartphone market fell 13.2 percent in 2022, to their lowest level in a decade, International Data Corporation (IDC)’s latest report shows.
According to IDC’s global mobile tracker report, released Jan. 29, about 286 million smartphones were shipped in China in 2022, the lowest number of smartphones shipped in China in ten years. It was also the first time in that period that shipments fell below the 300 million mark. Some commentators believe that a major underlying reason is China’s rapidly decreasing population.
Smartphone shipments in China in 2022 were down 43 million units from 2021, when about 329 million smartphones were shipped: a 13.2 percent year-on-year drop.
China’s top five smartphone vendors are vivo, Honor, OPPO, Apple, and Xiaomi. With the exception of Honor, all exhibited significant declines in shipment volume in 2022. Vivo fell 25.1 percent year-on-year; OPPO, Apple, and Xiaomi fell 28.2 percent, 4.4 percent, and 23.7 percent respectively. Although Honor’s shipment volume increased, its previous base was lower than that of the other vendors.
Xiaomi's Mi4i smartphone and Mi Band fitness tracker. Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images
Worldwide, smartphone shipments fell last year, declining 11.3 percent, according to a separate IDC report released on Jan. 25.
Guo Tianxiang, a senior analyst at IDC China, pointed out that the reasons for the decline in China’s smartphone market include market saturation and longer replacement cycles; bottlenecks in technology development and insufficient innovation; improved product quality and performance; and a decline in consumer income and confidence caused by the pandemic.
The pandemic could also be a major reason for the plunge in cell phone shipments, U.S.-based China expert Li Yanming told The Epoch Times on Feb. 2.
When COVID-19 first broke out in 2020, China’s cell phone subscriptions plummeted by 22 million. The massive subscription drop raised questions about the virus’s true death toll in China.
“If only 10 percent of the cellphone accounts were closed because the users died because of the CCP virus, the death toll would be 2 million,” Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based China affairs commentator, told The Epoch Times in 2020.
A coffin is loaded from a hearse into a storage container at the Dongjiao crematorium and funeral home in Beijing on Dec. 18, 2022. Getty Images
According to data released by China’s three major mobile phone operators, the number of mobile phone users in China decreased by 2.478 million in January of 2020. The following month, the number fell further, by a drastic 19.4555 million, with a total net decrease of 21.933 million users in the two months.
At the time, Chinese writer Fang Fang wrote in her online diary, later published as “Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City”: “What broke my heart more was a picture sent by my doctor friend ... mobile phones lying on the floor of a funeral house, all of whose owners had been reduced to ashes.”
Although China has been criticized for its lack of transparency in reporting statistics, even official reports indicate that China’s population is declining, with an official report showing that the population dropped last year for the first time in decades.
Shawn Lin is a Chinese expatriate living in New Zealand. He has contributed to The Epoch Times since 2009, with a focus on China-related topics.
