Nor are mobile phones able to get out of the crisis, recession or inflationary explosion in almost the whole world. According to the consulting firm IDC, global sales plummeted 11% last year (1,210 million units), the lowest record since 2013, and forecasts for the coming months are equally bleak. Argentina the question was maintained but prices measured in dollars have increased by almost 30% compared to 2021 due to the impact of inventories on imports and foreign exchange shortages.
“Preliminarily we are observing a market in units close to 10.5 million mobile phones, which represents a slight increase of 4.2%. But the average price has gone from $319 to $415 from one year to the next,” said Sebastián Novoa, an analyst at IDC. There are two factors influencing the increase. The first has to do with the incorporation of 5G in many devices, the other with the local crisis and the surge in the dollar “The market adjusted with higher replacement prices because there was no certainty as to when currencies could be rotated,” added the expert.
The importing stock in its two aspects (barriers to the entry of inputs and the obligation to finance purchases within 180 days) reinforces the extreme concentration of the market and limits the entry of new operators. Samsung and Motorola concentrate almost 95% of the business. The great expectation was the landing of the Chinese Xiaomi in Argentina. It is the world’s third-largest mobile phone maker, whose arrival threatened to break the hegemony of Mirgor (which makes for Samsung) and Newsan (a Motorola ally).
“Today we have no supplies. We will solve it, but we do not have a date ”, they complain in Solnik, a partner company of the brand. Local forecasts are also cautious. In the market they point out that the obligation to pay for imports in 6 months it favors the largest companies and those with open credit abroad, even if this implies higher costs which are transferred to the prices. “The one who solves the input problem is the one who wins,” they graphically represent in Solnik.
The Tierra del Fuego-based producers point out that the restriction on canceling cash purchases is a very difficult condition. 180-day financing is expensive (exchange insurance, interest rates for example) increases the cost of the product by about 20%. It’s what consumers end up paying for.
The mobile is the center of the universe for high technology. The pandemic has boosted technology sales globally, but it has distorted the market on the supply side. For almost two years, there have been shortages of chips due to the mandatory closure of factories, mostly concentrated in China. The reopening made it possible to relatively normalize the offer and nearly 1.4 billion devices were sold worldwide in 2021: 1.392 million to be exact, according to a report from Counterpoint.
The most worrying fact is this in the last quarter of the year, sales fell by just over 18% and analysts predict that it will be difficult for the market to recover in 2023. The contraction is due to reasons that Argentines know all too well. Consumer distrust, inflation (even in the single digits) and uncertainty about the economic future. Last year, Samsung was the leader with 22% market share. Behind were Apple (19%) and Xiaomi (13%). The top five is completed by two other Chinese brands, unknown to the Argentine public: Oppo and Vivo, which are about 8% of the total cake. Motorola (of the Chinese group Lenovo) has 4%.
“In Latin America, with the exception of Mexico, sales also contracted due to global inflation and the devaluation of local currencies. The increase in technology has hit demand and, in the face of this, equipment replacements it extends. people prefer to eat,” says with some irony Tina Lu, a local analyst at Counterpoint. In the region, the most affected market is Peru, a country plunged into a deep political crisis.
Source: Clarin
