According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics’ Wireless Smartphone Strategies, global smartphone wholesale price will grow +11% YoY from $279 in 2020 to $310 in 2021. This is the highest price in the smartphone industry since 2013.

We forecast global smartphone wholesale price to grow +11% YoY at US$310 in 2021, up from US$279 in 2020. Global smartphone wholesale revenue is expected to grow +21% YoY to reach its highest ever value at US$435 billion in 2021. This is driven by smartphone sales volume that will rebound at +9% YoY and the higher average price point.  This is the first time that average global wholesale price crossed the $300 mark over the past nine years. The price increase is driven by tech migration towards 5G smartphones, supply constraints due to component shortage which is leading to price hikes and new hardware innovations like foldable/flip form factor by Samsung.

Smartphones in the “$600 and above” price tier spurred market growth. This is driven by the solid sales of the iPhone 12 series, enriched foldable line up from Samsung, and sales of other premium devices from Chinese vendors like the OnePlus 9 series, Xiaomi 11 series, OPPO Reno series, Vivo X series, etc. We expect the newly launched iPhone 13 series will add to the above-mentioned factors during the fourth quarter of 2021. We forecast “$600 and above” price tier will grow +34% YoY by volume and +48% YoY by revenue, significantly outperforming the overall market and other price bands.

We expect global smartphone wholesale prices to fallback modestly to US$300 in 2022.  Easing supply constraints and component price spikes, as well as the expected iPhone SE model which should be refreshed during the first half of 2022 will fuel price pullbacks. We expect global smartphone wholesale price will be back on the upwards track from 2023 to 2025.

China, US, Japan, and India are the top four largest countries by smartphone wholesale revenue. Combined these will contribute 53% of the global smartphone wholesale revenues in 2022. Japan and South Korea support the world's highest smartphone wholesale prices, while India and some countries in Africa will deliver the lowest prices instead.