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Backed by a surge in consumers upgrading their smartphones<\/a> after a year plus of surviving the pandemic, the quarterly shipment numbers are set to cross the 47-49-million-unit mark in pre-Covid 2019.
“When compared to 2019, we foresee a potential 6-10% growth in shipments. Consumer demand for recently launched premium flagships is high, and OEMs (original equipment makers) are working their way around the supply constraints,” said Prabhu Ram, head of the industry intelligence group at CyberMedia Research<\/a>.
His firm estimates that the July-September quarter (Q3) will see 50-52 million units shipped, compared with 47.2 million units two years earlier. The number may be less compared with the 54 million units shipped last year, but Ram calls this a “marginal dip in shipments in year-on-year terms”. Last year’s high numbers were also due to a post-lockdown buying splurge.
According to some, the July-September quarter — which historically garners the highest shipments\/sales — would have beaten 2020’s record but for the supply chain issues and launch delays of handsets like the JioPhone Next, Reliance Industries<\/a>’ affordable 4G smartphone being designed along with Google.
Prachir Singh, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research<\/a>, said the company had expected 3 million units of Jio Phone Next<\/a> to hit the markets in September. The market tracking firm pegs handset shipments of around 50 million in the third quarter of 2021 compared with 34 million in the previous three months, 53.1 million units a year earlier and 49 million in Q3, 2019.
Navkendar Singh, research director at market research firm IDC, expects “a marginal uptick this year” from the 47-48 million units shipped in Q3 of 2019 but less than last year’s 53.5 million units.
Analysts expect the buoyancy in the markets to continue as consumer confidence gets propelled by increasing vaccination against the coronavirus.