Samsung’s smartphone business to likely fail to meet 2021 shipment target
Component shortage, weak seasonality squeeze firm
Samsung’s smartphone shipment in the second quarter dropped 25% from the previous quarter.
The company shipped a total of 130 million smartphones in the first half of the year, which means it will likely fail to meet its annual shipment target of 300 million for the entire year of 2021.
Samsung said it shipped 60 million handsets during the second quarter, with mid-90% of them being smartphone.
The South Korean tech giant likely shipped around 57.6 million units of smartphones during the quarter.
According to Counterpoint Research, the company moved 76.8 million units of smartphones in the first quarter.
Samsung said its smartphone sales dropped from component shortage, production problems from the pandemic and the second quarter being the traditional off-season.
The drop is also likely due to the company’s earlier-than-usual launch of its Galaxy S21 series of smartphones.
People familiar with the matter said Samsung has been adjusting its smartphone production schedule due to the global component shortage during the second quarter.
Before the shortage intensified, the company had plan to ship 300 million smartphones this year, the people said.
Samsung is also expected to cede its position as the largest OLED smartphone shipper to Apple this year.
Earlier this month, UBI Research had said Apple was the biggest buyer of smartphone OLED panels in the first half of the year at between 60 million units to 64 million units.
Samsung came in second at 55 million units to 56 million units.
As Cupertino is preparing to launch its new iPhones in the third quarter, this gap between the pair is expected to widen in the second half of the year.
Apple has ordered 20% more components for its upcoming iPhone 13 series compared to iPhone 12.
At the conference call, when questioned about the impact of the company no longer launching the Galaxy Note series which usually sold 10 million units a year, Samsung said it plans to popularize its new foldable products while maintaining the sales momentum of its Galaxy S series.