iPhone 14, 70% of demand is for Pro models. The smartphone market is bad: in Europe, sales drop by 20%

A recent survey by Counterpoint Research puts the magnifying glass on the smartphone market , revealing some important information. For example, the virtuous case of the United States, the only region where the smartphone market is growing, marking a +14% on an annual basis during the month of October, for a total of 14.45 million units delivered.

But this is an exception. In China , sales stopped at 20.42 million units, with a contraction of 4 points on a monthly basis and 15 percentage points on an annual basis, i.e. compared to the month of October 2021. Even worse in Europe , where sales reported a year-on-year decline of as much as 20 percentage points.

The Counterpoint Research report dedicates a paragraph to Apple , the only smartphone manufacturer globally that hasn’t ‘lost’ pieces in the last period. In China Apple scored a +25% on an annual basis, undermining Samsung and becoming the first manufacturer by number of devices sold. As for the new iPhone 14, Apple would have sold 26.09 million in two months, thus maintaining the excellent numbers of the last generation.

Counterpoint points out that the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max alone account for 70% of Apple’s sales. In short, for every 10 iPhones sold, 7 are from the Pro line and only 3 are the basic and cheaper version. Precisely this huge demand for the Pro line risks being a big deal for Apple:  as we have seen recently on these pages , production in China has suffered huge delays which will certainly penalize the manufacturer during the Christmas holidays, the most important period of the year.