Samsung could reduce smartphone production by 30 million units by 2022, according to reports from the authoritative South Korean financial newspaper MK News. The initial target was 310 million smartphones, but it was then decided to reconsider and go down to 280 million. There are three main reasons that would have motivated the provision:
- The war in Ukraine;
- The supply crisis for chips and other crucial electronic components;
- The rise in inflation and the consequent decrease in consumer spending.
The news is not official but the source mentions them statements from a manager of one of the companies controlled directly by Samsung. It is easy for the boundary between indiscretion and official news to blur with giants of this magnitude, extremely branched and composed of (literally) tens of thousands of people to which external partner companies are added, especially when they are on the other side of the world and language and conventions pose additional challenges and barriers. But it is at least plausible.
We are observing on several occasions how the tech sector is suffering right now, after a couple of years of pandemic characterized by dizzying growths. A low of recession, or at least slowdown in growth, was largely predictable – and expected. In this sense, it is worth noting that Apple has also decided to scale back its production estimates for this year – the Nikkei would have indicated -20% for the third-generation iPhone SE, which as we know has not actually impressed.
It is worth mentioning that for Samsung, the annual smartphone production record was reached in 2017, with over 300 million units; in the following years the company mainly gravitated to the range between 250 and 300 million, without however ever reaching them.
