CHART: Vietnam’s smartphone shipments fell 15.6% in 2022

Vietnam's smartphone shipments declined by 15.6% to 13.4 million units in 2022, a volume just slightly better than the 13.2 million units in 2015 when the market was still on the rise, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).

Despite the fourth quarter of the year usually being a seasonally strong period, significantly dampened consumer demand, high inflation, and economic uncertainties also pushed the market down 50.3% YoY to 2.6 million units, a total not seen since Q3 21 when the market was struggling with supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The market intelligence group attributed the cause to rising living costs and growing macroeconomic concerns in the region that dampened consumer demand in the year. This has also led to a cautious start in 2023 as vendors rethought their portfolio of devices amidst profitability concerns.

Looking at the Techloy chart below, Apple was a bright spot in 2022, being the only top smartphone vendor to weather the decline with a 23.6% growth while other vendors including Samsung, Xiaomi and OPPO witnessed a decline year over year.