China smartphone market generated 71.9 million units of shipments in Q1 2022, down -17 % YoY, blaming to the unfavoured market conditions, including supply constraints, mixed economic outlooks, inflations, and escalating covid 19 cases.

The spike of Covid 19 cases and the associated lock-down measures is the biggest challenge that China smartphone market is facing. From demand side, the economic uncertainty is dampening consumer spending power amid the fear of income security. Meanwhile, consumers’ spending on non-essential products (like smartphone) is reduced. From supply side, smartphone vendors are facing extra cost related to lock-down as well as the disruption risks in manufacturing and logistic. With escalated lockdown measures in China, we are expecting a weaker Q2 2022, and we project China smartphone market will decline -5% to -6% YoY in 2022.

Vendor-wise, OPPO (including OnePlus) topped China smartphone market in Q1 2022, followed closely by Honor and vivo. These three Android vendors combined captured 56% volume share in China market this quarter. Apple ranked fourth and Xiaomi ranked afterwards, with 16% and 15% volume share, respectively. These top five brands combined contributed to 87% volume share in China, up slightly from 86% a year ago. The mild growth suggests the golden time for them to fulfil Huawei’s fallout in local market has come to an end, and the competition is intensified among the top vendors in China in 2022.

Detailed analysis of the latest quarter and estimates for both smartphones and handsets are available here from our Smartphone Country Share Tracker (SCST) Service.