The first few months of 2022 are proving disastrous for the consumer electronics industry.
You only need to look at the distribution data for PCs and mobiles to get an idea of the problem.
The sale of the former has fallen by 4.3% in the first quarter of the year, that of the latter, by 8.9% when compared to the same period in 2021.
The reasons are various, but on the list of all market analysts
, logistical problems and the low availability of chips
are the most responsible for a situation that could persist throughout the year.
TASMC, the largest maker of food processors and a leading supplier to consumer electronics brands, has warned that production capacity will be low throughout the year due to the problems that the pandemic has caused in supply and transportation chains.
It does not help, either, that several of the busiest Chinese ports, such as Shanghai or Shenzhen, have had to stop for weeks due to new outbreaks of COVID.
In these regions many of the consumer electronics manufacturers also have their final assembly plants.
Putting a figure against such a headwind is complex, but some companies have dared.
Apple, for example, has advanced since its figures for the second quarter of the year will suffer a blow of between 4,000 and 8,000 million euros
due to all these problems, to which is also added the brake on the sale of products in Russia as part of the boycott the Putin government for the invasion of Ukraine.
The company, in any case, is one of the few that has saved the quarter with growth in both the sale of Macs and iPhones.
Apple has sold 8% more computers in the first three months of the year than in 2021, according to consulting firm Conuterpoint Research, and 2.2% more iPhones, according to IDC.
In PC, Dell is the other company that can also boast of having grown in sales, with an increase of just 1%.
Lenovo's sales have fallen by 10% and HP's by 16%.
Several analysts emphasize that this is a logical phenomenon due
to the boom that computer companies experienced with the pandemic
, when many households renewed their equipment to be able to work remotely.
In mobile telephony, Samsung continues to be the company that sells the most smartphones, close to 73.6 million in the first three months of the year compared to Apple's 56.5 million.
The figure, however, represents a drop of 1.2% in units.
Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo occupy the third, fourth and fifth position in the market, but their sales have fallen significantly during this period.
Xiaomi, for example, has sold 17.8% fewer mobiles.
Oppo, 26.8% and Vivo, 27.7%.
"It goes without saying that the world continues to face many challenges, be they geopolitical, pandemic-related, or macroeconomic," said Ryan Reith, vice president at IDC.
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