Global Smart Phone Market Entered a Saturation Phase
At the time when "Black Friday" sales season is over and Christmas holiday season is coming, iPhone X once again heard the news which is not optimistic. On Christmas Day, Taiwan's Economic Daily quoted the news from the supply chain that iPhone X sales was not as good as expected, and Apple had revised down the sales forecast for the first quarter of next year, greatly reducing 40% from the original seasonal order of 50 million to 30 million, a decrease exceeding previous market expectations. The report also said that Zhengzhou factory under Hon Hai Foxconn, the exclusive assembly plant of iPhone X has announced urgently that it would fully suspend recruitment since December 25. The previous phenomenon of continuous accelerated recruitment before production season did not appear. In fact, in mid-December, news from the market was that Apple's original additional order to factory had been reversed to reduce orders. The company cut TSMC's A11 processor orders, and the order for A11 for the first quarter of next year dropped 30%. Some analysts speculate, iPhone X orders for the first quarter of next year will follow with a 30% reduction. In fact, according to a number of media reports earlier, Apple was not the company which scales down its orders, a number of well-known mobile phone brands have been exposed to cut their orders.Samsung, OPPO, VIVO revised down their orders, some manufacturers orders shrunk by about 10%. Among them, Samsung recently lowered orders for the first quarter of next year for more than double-digit reduction. The biggest factor why this phenomenon occurs is that the global smart phone market has entered its saturation stage. The entire market has stalled since last year and China is no exception. In addition, Chinese consumers have switched cell phone cycles to 22 months at frequencies below the global average, and their smart phones have been sluggish in innovation. Overall, the industry is relatively pessimistic about the smart phone market in the first half of next year.