Not everything is going well in the land of smartphones. The industry went into a slowdown long before SARS-CoV-2 entered the scene. The glory days of expanding markets and biannual upgrades seem to be over, and things have only gotten worse for two years of financial hardship and supply chain constraints.
For all these reasons, it is not surprising that manufacturers are lagging behind in manufacturing. A new report from South Korea’s Maeil Business News causes the world’s leading smartphone maker to cut production by 30 million units by 2022. The news comes as sales are further hampered by the conflict in Ukraine. In March, the company followed the other technology giants Microsoft and Apple by suspending sales in Russia.
Apple has also felt the pain. Recent reports from Bloomberg indicate that the iPhone maker is limiting plans to make an additional 20 million phones by 2022. However, their numbers will remain stable from 2021. These reports follow several quarters of sales of iPhones that had managed to beat many of the industry’s macro trends, but the company could return to Earth, even with the imminent arrival of the iPhone 14.
It is a perfect storm of industry and global factors that have brought us to this place. There is no time to panic for the larger manufacturers: they will almost certainly come out unscathed. But there are broader questions left about the industry in the future. Most important is whether it’s a calm after a decade of explosive smartphone sales, or whether even the advent of new technologies such as folding screens will usher in a return to the golden age. of mobile phones.
Samsung declined to comment on the reports.