'가격 후려치기'로 "세계 1위" 노리더니.."팔수록 손해" 역습 당하자 당황한 중국 (자막뉴스) / SBS

Major Chinese smartphone manufacturers, which had been closely chasing Samsung Electronics using low prices as their weapon, appear to be faltering across the board. As the AI ​​craze intensifies the supply shortage of memory semiconductors and component prices skyrocket one after another, they have lowered their shipment targets for this year by more than 30%. According to foreign media outlets such as Nikkei Asia, major Chinese smartphone manufacturers, including Xiaomi, recently notified their component suppliers that they would lower their shipment targets for this year by up to 30%. Lei Jun, Chairman of Xiaomi, the industry leader in China, had boasted in 2021 that he would "become the world's number one smartphone manufacturer within three years." However, this year's shipment target has been reduced by 44%, from 170 million units last year to 95 million units. It is also reported that Huawei's smartphone brand "Honor," which recorded a record-high shipment volume of 71 million units last year, has determined that it will be difficult to sustain its growth momentum this year. Last January, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Meizu completely canceled the launch of its slim smartphone, which had been scheduled for early this year. At the time, the company stated that "the surge in memory prices has become a significant obstacle to our smartphone business plans." The Chinese government has been providing massive subsidies to smartphone manufacturers to boost domestic demand. However, the AI ​​craze has driven Chinese smartphone companies, which had grown rapidly backed by government support, into a crisis. This is because global semiconductor manufacturers have concentrated their production facilities on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and high-value DRAM for AI servers, causing the supply of general-purpose core components—such as smartphone DRAM, NAND flash, and printed circuit boards (PCBs)—to vanish. As component prices skyrocketed, Chinese companies that had previously employed a strategy of selling in bulk at low prices suffered a fatal blow. In particular, since the main customer base for mid-to-low-end phones consists of price-sensitive consumers, it is difficult to pass on the increased costs directly to the product price. Ultimately, as the distorted structure where "the more you sell, the more you lose" intensified, they resorted to the desperate measure of forcibly reducing shipment volumes to prevent losses. The repercussions of this are spreading to the entire global smartphone market; market research firm Counterpoint Research forecasts that global smartphone shipments will decrease by approximately 14% this year, marking the largest decline in history. It is assessed that even Apple and Samsung Electronics, which have a higher proportion of premium products than Chinese smartphone manufacturers, will find it difficult to avoid the impact of slowing demand and rising manufacturing costs. (Reporting: Kim Min-jeong, Video Editing: Jang Yu-jin, Design: Yuk Do-hyun, Production: Digital News Department) #SBSNews #News #Realtime Copyright Ⓒ SBS. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, redistribution, and use for AI learning are prohibited.