2026-01-16
Weak Peak Season? China Q3 Smartphone Production Drops 11% YoY,
According to the latest data from DataTrack, China's smartphone production in the third quarter of 2025 (ending September 30) was 11.2 million units (11,200 K pcs). Despite entering the traditional peak season for the electronics industry, production only rebounded slightly by 1.8% from 11.0 million units in the second quarter, and declined significantly by 11.1% compared to 12.6 million units in the same period of 2024. This marks multiple consecutive quarters where the data has remained at a low level below 12.0 million units, indicating that manufacturing recovery momentum is quite weak amidst a lack of strong new model effects and macroeconomic headwinds. Furthermore, compared to the peak in 2018 where single-quarter volume often reached 60.0 million units, the industry scale has shrunk significantly.
Observing market dynamics, the decline in production (-11%) is far greater than the decline in end-market sales, highlighting the structural impact of "capacity relocation." According to Counterpoint Research data, end-market sales of smartphones in China in Q3 only decreased by 2.7% YoY, while production suffered a double-digit decline. This implies that although brand manufacturers maintained a certain sales scale, production orders have largely flowed overseas. In particular, Apple and Samsung have increased their manufacturing proportions in India and Vietnam; notably, India is expected to capture 20% of the global mobile phone manufacturing share in 2025, directly crowding out domestic export orders from China.
Regarding the domestic demand market, analysis points out that "consumption downgrading" and "extended replacement cycles" remain the primary causes. Although subsidy policies introduced by the Chinese government at the beginning of the year briefly boosted performance in Q1, their effects significantly diminished in the second half of the year. Counterpoint noted that although the release of the iPhone 17 series and domestic flagship models from OPPO and Vivo toward the end of Q3 slightly lifted market enthusiasm, the overall economic slowdown has lowered consumer willingness to replace mid-to-low-end models, leading the supply chain to adopt extremely conservative strategies regarding restocking.
Looking ahead, in the short term, the fourth quarter is expected to benefit from the "Double 11" shopping festival and restocking demand before the Lunar New Year, coupled with the first full sales quarter of the iPhone 17 series, potentially leading to a slight seasonal rebound in production. However, from a medium-to-long-term perspective, considering potential variables regarding tariff policies from the new US government and the irreversible trend of global supply chain restructuring, the production outlook for the first half of 2026 remains conservative. China's mobile phone manufacturing industry is likely to maintain an L-shaped consolidation within the current low range.
Reference Sources:
https://vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com/grounding-api-redirect/AUZIYQHGqulc7lo63wRADyaE0uX7OjFE3f3GmdjP_t7fav-MYB9wDuLk_qfZnJNkugZyiT7BxIHZLGpDBr7JVy9dk2ek8oL-BrD6DfXnpv6uUC2Ajn5RcGgyHjCNcIzocv2k6oRQDLgmsIuAxCmgMbMcvM6wztVzl3Sig-JPVBWbScReoU-g9eDbzCGG
https://vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com/grounding-api-redirect/AUZIYQGkLA-7mOqagRNJV11zsTNNnKzJyxKpS6Z2rT19gKOr1JcIIu_RNtreCXGF29XmJm5W92UK2d10tkIVJRSC6LkUbDMzWGRWzP7AVmfemRmrvBzFn-kf8ZmdnajvjsMizhN2wUYc9RiaHnUVAf7OJMmuBu4yH_kM_ACjfHCXGOcdVRGo6PRFKDnMOslQHcZYgOwiDzM3FJJJLSJHUzz7RutZj5HBrMSzW7M0UWKFvYj7rvDCWMN-EV92rWk=
https://vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com/grounding-api-redirect/AUZIYQF-z5_vMfe3c4nIZ59bcOWs1BOzMstyEBvOL3eIfvMCpHIOQrRpT5dB31V_vFi3QmjUahevwNpUw1hkh5eeYkpU0nWluKRR8QCGuqlRkwdzCSupY0_YVK3sXmGqb9tzbjjrysrmzSl7ETHIe7AyTmtswpt7aB6-yBIPpBlgKZg1h7N3BO3XzNHPK7EzNZBZgx-My_eg-iPJ