China smartphone market experienced a sluggish fourth-quarter in 2018 amid a weakening economy, instead of strong domestic demand in the period - traditionally a high season.
Having ramped up their combined smartphone shipments by 6.5% on year to 192 million units in the third quarter of 2018, China-based vendors are likely to see a single-digit shipment decrease in the fourth quarter due to weakening demand in the domestic market and competition resulting from the availability of new iPhone devices, according to Digitimes Research.
Digitimes Research estimates global smartphone shipments will not be able to break through the 1.5 billion unit mark by 2019 as 5G communication has yet to spur a wave of upgrades and the 4G smart feature phone ecosystem has yet to complete.
This DIGITIMES Special Report provides insights into various aspects of the smartphone AP market, including suppliers' shipments, market shares, manufacturing processes, and the incorporating of AI in the processors.
Shipments to the China market rebounded to a level above 90 million units in second-quarter 2018, with an on-quarter growth nearing 10%, according to Digitimes Research statistics.
Digitimes Research's study of the smartphone supply chain and market in China shows that first-quarter 2018 smartphone shipments to the China market fell below 90 million units, down 34% on quarter and 13.4% on year due to a number of reasons.
Digitimes Research estimates total shipments of smartphone application processors (AP) worldwide will grow 1.5% on year to 1.67 billion units in 2018. The slowing growth in the smartphone market means global smartphone AP shipments will only grow at a mild pace in the next few years, reaching 1.77 billion units in 2021. The report shows that Qualcomm will continue reigning at No. 1 in terms of vendor rankings in 2018, followed by MediaTek. But in-house-developed chips by Apple, Samsung, and Huawei (Hisilicon) will see their share of shipments grow to almost 30% in 2018.
China-based smartphone vendors shipped a total of 199.8 million phones to both the domestic and overseas markets in the fourth quarter of 2017, up nearly 10% on quarter but only showing a single digit growth from the corresponding period of 2016.
China-based smartphone makers shipped a total of 179.2 million phones in the third quarter of 2017, down 0.4% on year and up 20.8% on quarter. The top five vendors in terms of shipment volumes were Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, BBK and Lenovo.
Digitimes Research estimates smartphone shipments to the China market in the second quarter of 2017 totaled 94.1 million units, maintaining a similar level to that seen in the first quarter of 2017 but down 11.8% on year.
This Digitimes Research Special Report examines the China AMOLED industry, focusing on the expansion capacity of the makers, the current implementation plans of major smartphone vendors in the market and the technological hurdles faced by China's makers.
