STOCKHOLM Reuters forecast global mobile phone sales to fall 7.1% this year on Thursday, up from its earlier estimate of 2.2%, citing inflation, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and lock-downs in China.
In 2022, mobile phone shipments are expected to fall to 1.46 billion units from 1.57 billion, according to Gartner's earlier forecast of 1.60 billion.
The lifetimes of mobiles are increasing, according to Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner, told Reuters that about 150 million mobile shipment were out of the forecast.
For every three months people hold onto their phones, around 150 million units get lost. Consumer decisions could be affected by the possibility of a global recession and high inflation in several countries.
The research firm expects worldwide personal computer shipments to drop 9.5% in 2022, compared to its earlier forecast of a 4% fall. Lenovo, HP and Dell are the top three PC makers.
Atwal said that the declining PC and smartphone market will not get compensated by automobiles and other areas, which will likely result in an easing of chip shortage later this year.
Higher demand for phones and PCs during the epidemic had led tech companies to place big orders with chipmakers, which resulted in shortage of semiconductors that are used in industries such as automobiles and telecom.
In the first quarter of 2009, Samsung and Apple saw declining sales in several areas, due to China's COVID 19 lockdowns.
Gartner said that shipments of smartphones are expected to decrease 5.8% this year and the Chinese shipment to fall 18.3%.
At the beginning of the year, the greater China 5 G phone market was expected to show double-digit growth, said Atwal.
The back half of the year is very strong for China but it isn't strong enough to compensate for what has happened.