Xiaomi demand declines

The smartphone market is in crisis, and this is not new, nor should the situation in Europe be too surprising, where not very encouraging signs were seen in the first quarter. Pandemic, crisis of the components and the Ukrainian conflict have done nothing but accelerate and reinvigorate a crisis already underway, due to a stagnation of innovation rather than economic. Now the second has been added to the first - high-growth inflation certainly does not help - and the picture can therefore only be negative.

Smartphone shipments in the Old Continent decreased by 11 percentage points on an annual basis, -13% is instead the difference compared to the previous quarter. This is the worst quarter since Q2 2020 with just 40.3 million smartphones on the market. The data processed by Counterpoint Research show a not very comforting picture. From 45 million smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2021, it went to 45.6 million in Q3 and 56.6 million in the last quarter of 2021 - that of holidays. From there the decline, first with a decidedly subdued Q1 2022 with 46.6 million smartphones shipped, then with the thud of Q2.

Compared to the previous year, only Apple, Samsung and Realme can smile: the three brands have in fact grown (in terms of shipments) respectively by 3, 9 and 21%. Different speech instead if you compare the data with those of the previous quarter: only Xiaomi managed to ship more smartphones (7.5 million in Q2 vs 6.1 mill i on in Q1). For Apple and Samsung, the collapse of the last quarter is essentially due to the withdrawal from the Russian market.

Samsung remains the leading smartphone manufacturer in Europe, with a market share growing year-on-year from 27 to 32%. With the plus sign also Apple, which passes from 21 to 24% of market share, and Realme, now to 3% (before 2%). For all the other brands there is a contraction, especially for the Chinese brands (note: the data referring to Oppo includes those of OnePlus starting from the third quarter of 2021):