Smartphone shipments seen declining in new Cowen industry outlook

More new data on the outlook for the smartphone industry suggests that shipments numbers are lining up to slow down this year and next as the sector cools a bit following 2021’s big pandemic-fueled growth levels.

Analysts at Cowen said they now expect worldwide mobile phone shipments this year to decline by 6% from a year ago, to 1.36B, and that 2023’s shipments will dip by 2%, to 1.33B units. The Cowen team said that “build targets” at major Chinese smartphone makers, as well as Samsung “continue to see negative revisions” to their production expectations.

Among the reasons Cowen’s analysts gave for their views on the smartphone market was weakness in the higher-end smartphone market.

Analyst Krish Shankar said that for Apple, he estimates the company shipped 43 million iPhones during the quarter that ended in June, and that Apple (AAPL) will ship 48 million iPhones in the quarter that ends in September. However, with the possibility that “high-end consumer discretionary spending could start to moderate” by December, Shankar estimates that Apple’s (AAPL) Phone shipments for 2023 will decline by 3% from 2022.

With regards to smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm, analyst Matthew Ramsay said the company is “better insulated” than others due to factors such as gaining more market share within Samsung devices, and shifts to more so-called “premium tier” Android-based phones that will multiple Qualcomm (QCOM) chips.

One smartphone chipmaker seen as slipping in the smartphone market a bit is Qorvo as Ramsay cut his rating on the chipmaker to market perform from outperform, and took down his price target on the company’s stock to $108 a share from $150. Ramsey cited weakness in the Android market as the main source for his new view on Qorvo (QRVO). Seeking Alpha