Samsung is reportedly scaling back the number of phones it’s planning on producing in 2022, from 310 million to 280 million,
according to SamMobile, which cites
a report from Korean outlet
Maeil Business News. In absolute terms, that’s still quite a lot of phones, but it’s a relatively sharp decrease from the company’s original goal (and from the
reported number of phones it and its partners produced last year). It seems that there may be a trend of manufacturers preparing for the economy to get worse before it gets better.
Reportedly, the lowered production targets will affect phones across its lineup, from low-end models to flagships. In a way, cutting the production of its less expensive phones sounds counter-intuitive — wouldn’t more people turn to those during an economic downturn? But it tracks when you consider that the alternative is just not buying a phone at all; people who are in the market for low-end phones might not want to buy a new one unless they absolutely have to, and those who have high-end phones would probably be better off just keeping them for an extra year or two.
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