According to a newly released study by Strategy Analytics' Wireless Smartphone Strategy (WSS) service, the global wholesale price of smartphones will grow from $279 in 2020 to $310 in 2021, an increase of 11 percent year-on-year. That's the highest price in the smartphone industry since 2013.
"We expect global wholesale smartphone prices to grow 11% yoy to $310 in 2021, up from $279 in 2020," said Abhilash Kumar, analyst at Strategy Analytics. Global wholesale smartphone revenue is expected to grow 21% year-on-year to $435 billion in 2021, a record high. This was driven by a rebound in smartphone sales (up 9 per cent year on year) and a higher average price point. It is the first time in nine years that average global wholesale prices have breached the $300 mark. The price increase is driven by technology migration to 5G smartphones, supply constraints due to component shortages (contributing to the price increase), and new hardware innovations such as foldable/flip by Samsung."
Sui Qian, senior director at Strategy Analytics, added: "Smartphones priced at $600 and above stimulated market growth. This was driven by solid sales of iPhone12 series, Samsung's rich line of foldable phones, and sales of other high-end devices from Chinese manufacturers such as OnePlus9 series, mi 11 series, OPPO Reno series, VivoX series, etc. We expect the newly released iPhone13 series to fall under these factors in Q4 2021. "We expect unit growth of 34% year-over-year and revenue growth of 48% year-over-year for phones at $600 and above, significantly outperforming the overall market and other price ranges."
"We expect global wholesale smartphone prices to ease slightly to $300 in 2022," Kumar added. Easing of supply constraints and surging component prices, as well as an expected update of the iPhoneSE model in the first half of 2022, will push prices down. "We expect global wholesale smartphone prices to return to an upward trajectory in 2023-2025."
Sui added, "China, the United States, Japan and India are the four countries with the highest revenue from smartphone wholesale. By 2022, these four countries will account for 53 percent of total global smartphone wholesale revenue. Japan and South Korea have the highest wholesale smartphone prices in the world, while India and some African countries have the lowest prices."
