Smartphone production has dwindled, as evidenced by the results of recent research by analytics firm TrendForce. According to analysts’ estimates, the total smartphone production volume in the third quarter of 2022 was approximately 289 million units. This is 11% less than the same period last year, but also only 0.9% less than in the second quarter of 2022.

Analysts attribute the decline in smartphone production during the peak season, which is always the third quarter, as manufacturers now prefer to sell stocks and cut production due to serious global economic problems.

The leader in smartphone manufacturing remains the South Korean company Samsung, which shipped approximately 64.2 million devices last quarter, up 3.9% compared to the second quarter of this year. As a result, Samsung’s share was 22.2%.

Apple is in second place with a share of 17.6%. It produced 50.8 million iPhones in the third quarter. At the same time, analysts point out that Apple is taking advantage of the redistribution of demand that has occurred in the world market due to the decline in the presence of the Chinese company Huawei. The optimum prices of the new iPhone models also contributed to production, which stimulated demand. According to TrendForce, the peak of sales of new flagships from the iPhone 14 series will be reached in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Three Chinese companies have closed the world’s top 5 smartphone manufacturers. These are Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo, which have 13.1%, 11.6% and 8.5% respectively of the global market.

TrendForce analysts state that the smartphone market started showing signs of weakening a year ago, in the third quarter of 2021. Since then, they’ve recorded a decline in new smartphone production for the six quarters in a row. At the same time, analysts are very optimistic and expect new smartphone production to eventually return to growth once manufacturers complete their stock adjustments. But that won’t happen before the second quarter of 2023.

Finally, analysts made a forecast for the last quarter of 2022. They expect global smartphone production to be around 316 million units in the fourth quarter. This will be 9.3% more than in the third quarter of 2022, but at the same time, production will continue to decline year-on-year.