According to preliminary data provided by IDC, in the second quarter of this year, 285.4 million smartphones were shipped worldwide, which is 6.5% more than the same period last year. For the fourth quarter in a row, smartphone shipments have been growing, but IDC representatives believe that the factor of the spread of artificial intelligence will begin to fully influence demand no earlier than the second half of the year. By the end of 2024, the corresponding smartphones will occupy 19% of the market.
Image Source: Samsung Electronics
In quantitative terms, this corresponds to 234 million devices delivered by the end of 2024 that support certain artificial intelligence functions at the hardware level. The five largest smartphone suppliers have already shown signs of demand recovery in the second quarter. All of them showed positive dynamics in annual comparison, but this was largely due to the effect of a low base for comparison.
Image source: IDC
Market leader Samsung slightly reduced its market share, from 20 to 18.9%, although in terms of shipments it showed an increase of 0.7%. Apple in second place added 1.5% compared to the second quarter of last year, its share decreased from 16.6 to 15.8%. The third place is occupied by the Chinese Xiaomi, and it leads the top five in terms of supply growth rates (27.4%), and its market share increased from 12.4 to 14.8%. Vivo showed good progress, increasing its shipments by 21.9% to 25.9 million smartphones, and its share eventually increased from 7.9 to 9.1%. All this allowed Vivo to share fourth place with Oppo, which increased its shipments by only 1.8%, but lost only one tenth of a percent of the market share to its closest competitor, taking 9.0%. All other smartphone manufacturers shipped 92.1 million products in the second quarter, demonstrating a 2.3% increase in shipments.
According to IDC analysts, the smartphone market is now trending toward price polarization. The upper price segment is dominated by Samsung and Apple, but in the lower price segment Chinese manufacturers have to desperately fight for survival. The share of smartphones in the mid-price segment is declining under these conditions. In the current half of the year, according to IDC representatives, the main driver of growth in smartphone shipments will be artificial intelligence functions. The expansion of the corresponding devices will surpass both 5G and the rate of distribution of folding smartphones with flexible displays, according to experts. In addition, the introduction of AI functions into smartphones will contribute to an increase in the average price of their implementation.