Smartphone Shipments Grow Amid Tariff Wars

Smartphone shipments increased during the first quarter of 2025 to around 305 million units.

Consultancy firm IDC estimates the total at 304.9 million. This number is higher than the cumulative number for the months of January, February and March 2024.

Translated into a year-on-year percentage growth rate, this is a 1,5 % improvement, according to IDC. Canalys‘ analysis of what happened in the first quarter reduces that increase to 1 % year-on-year.

Macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical tensions are playing a major role in the evolution of mobile phone shipments and sales.

Consumers are reacting cautiously to the global tariff war. For their part, manufacturers have decided to step up production in anticipation of the US government’s imposition of tariffs on imports from China.

‘In the face of growing geopolitical uncertainty and the imminent threat of significant tariff increases by the US on products imported from China,’ explains Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of client devices at IDC, “vendors strategically accelerated production schedules and brought forward significant shipment volumes”.

‘This increased supply,’ he continues, is “intended to mitigate potential cost increases and disruptions”.

‘The US government’s recent waiver, which suspended tariffs on smartphone imports from China, offers temporary relief to US companies,’ adds Ryan Reith, group vice president for device tracking at the same research company.

‘However,’ he adds, “a heavy reliance on the Chinese supply chain persists amid continued tariff volatility, making future planning difficult and leaving a high level of uncertainty for many companies with important decisions” to make.

Reith believes that ‘US smartphone brands should focus on taking advantage of the exemption by manufacturing and shipping as much product as possible’.

But ‘the other side of the coin is the possibility that economic uncertainty will dampen consumer demand in the coming months,’ he acknowledges.

This is agreed by Sanyam Chaurasia, senior analyst at Canalys, who notes that ‘consumer caution, driven by global macroeconomic challenges’, has already ‘dampened the typical seasonal uptick in the first quarter. Even festive periods in key markets, such as Ramadan,’ he exemplifies, “generated lower-than-expected demand”.

Vendor strategies, going forward, ‘include dynamic channel incentive plans to encourage sales, partnerships with distributors to expand funding in emerging markets, and agile channel pricing strategies to strike a balance between overall profitability and price competitiveness,’ Chaurasia lists.

‘To reduce exposure, vendors and their supply chain partners are accelerating diversification strategies, shifting production bases, re-evaluating sourcing models and optimising logistics,’ adds fellow research director Amber Liu.

‘These dynamics are expected to affect profitability and lengthen planning cycles across the global smartphone industry by 2025,’ she warns.

‘Escalating global trade tensions are creating new uncertainties for smartphone vendors in 2025. In the US, vendors such as Apple, Samsung and Lenovo are already grappling with weaker domestic demand and the looming threat of higher operating costs due to impending tariffs,’ Liu observes.

‘Globally,’ he notes, “while the full extent and timing of the new tariffs remain uncertain, vendors are bracing for higher component prices and weaker export demand in affected markets”.

The situation is summarised as ‘the overall environment proved to be more volatile than expected in the first quarter of 2025, while the global market continued its recovery’.

‘After a solid close to 2024, vendors pushed large volumes of inventory into channels to gain share. However,’ details the Canalys spokeswoman, ’slower-than-expected direct sales prolonged inventory cycles, slowing sales momentum in early 2025.’

‘Unlike the 2024 recovery, which was driven by a post-pandemic upgrade cycle and mass-market affordability,’ he buys, ’this year’s recovery is proving more fragile.’

Samsung and Apple are the two most successful smartphone brands globally, each dominating nearly a fifth of the market.

The South Korean company is relying on demand for its premium Galaxy S25 handset and Galaxy A series. Meanwhile, Apple completed its first quarter with the most phone units shipped ever, in response to a strategy of stockpiling to deal with the tariff issue.

Apple’s performance in China faltered during the start of 2025, as the iPhone Pro was excluded from the Chinese government’s subsidy programme.

The top five most popular smartphone brands are rounded out by Xiaomi, which dominates around 14% of shipments, and OPPO and vivo, which have similar shares (7.7% and 7.4%, according to IDC, and 8% both, according to Canalys).