Smartphone sales in mainland China picked up steam in January after recording their fifth consecutive year of decline in 2022, igniting discussion on whether the stagnant market will finally bottom out and rise in 2023, according to a report by Counterpoint Research, reports the South China Morning Post.
Average weekly smartphone sales in January reached 6.7 million units, much higher than the average of 5.5 million in 2022, the report said. That represented sequential growth of more than 40%, although monthly sales year on year were flat in the world’s largest smartphone market.
The “good start” was driven by the restoration of normal social activities in the country after a surge of COVID-19 infections in December, according to Archie Zhang, a Beijing-based research analyst at Counterpoint.