The smartphone market is about to return to pre-pandemic production levels, says market watcher TrendForce estimating that all OEMs combined will ship roughly 1.39 billion phones in 2022, up 3.8% year-on-year. With the phone market beginning to fully recover, Samsung is also expected to increase its production output by around 1.1% YoY.
The research firm estimates that Samsung will manufacture around 276 million smartphones next year and capture 20% of the market. It should be followed by Apple with 18%, Xiaomi (16%), Oppo (15%), and Vivo (11%).
Out of the 1.39 billion smartphones expected to be churned out by all OEMs next year, roughly 660 million will be capable of 5G connectivity.
Samsung could be losing ground in emerging markets
Even though Samsung should maintain its lead over all other OEMs worldwide and increase its smartphone production output in 2022, market watchers estimate that the company could be losing ground in emerging markets.
Samsung's recent efforts concern mainly the Galaxy Z Flip 3, the Z Fold 3, the S Pen, and the upcoming Galaxy S22 series featuring an S Pen-enabled Ultra model. The company's now outsourcing more mid-range phones to ODM companies to increase profit margins, but it's no longer as competitive in the low-end segment.
Other OEMs do have a stronger low-end device portfolio, which is why TrendForce believes that Samsung will find it increasingly difficult to improve its market share in emerging markets. Nevertheless, Samsung should continue leading the global smartphone segment as a whole throughout 2022.
Next year, half of Samsung's smartphones could be powered by Exynos chipsets, and the company could move a significant portion of its manufacturing to India.
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