China's mobile phone shipments drop 22.6% year on year to 272 million in 2022, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT). The shipment volume of 5G mobile phones reached 214 million last year, accounting for 78.8% of the country's total mobile phone shipments. Last year, 351 new smartphone models were released in the country, down 13.1% year on year.
Domestic brands continued to claim the lion's share of the Chinese mobile phone market in 2022, with their shipment volume reaching 229 million – amounting to 84.2% of China's total mobile phone shipments.
China's furniture industry reported profit growth in 2022, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Total profits of enterprises with annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan (2.91 million U.S. dollars) stood at 47.12 billion yuan, according to the ministry. This represented a year-on-year increase of 7.9%. These firms reported combined operating revenue of 762.41 billion yuan, down 8.1% year on year.
China saw more wealth management product investors in 2022, after it lowered the market entry threshold, according to the China Banking Wealth Management Registration and Depository Center. The number of wealth management product investors was approximately 96.71 million by the end of 2022, increasing 18.96% from the beginning of the year.
By the end of 2022, the balance of wealth management products stood at 27.65 trillion yuan (about 4.03 trillion U.S. dollars), down 4.66% from the beginning of the year.
China's petrochemical industry saw an increase in revenues and a decline in profits in 2022, according to the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF). The country's petrochemical industry registered a total revenue of 16.56 trillion yuan (about 2.41 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2022, climbing 14.4% year on year, while its total profit drop 2.8% to 1.13 trillion yuan.
In 2022, the import and export volume of petrochemical products rose 21.7% year on year to 1.05 trillion dollars. China's crude oil output stood at 205 million tonnes in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 2.9%, in a fourth consecutive year of growth. The country's natural gas output was 217.79 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 6.4%.
China's photovoltaic (PV) sector posted robust growth in 2022 with the total output value of the industry exceeding 1.4 trillion yuan (203.9 billion U.S. dollars). The output of the major links of the industrial chain, including polysilicon, wafers, cells, and modules, all registered year-on-year growth of over 55%, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Strong overseas market demands for new energy drove up the export of China's PV products and exports totaled 51.2 billion U.S. dollars. China-made PV modules, wind turbines, gearboxes, and other key components accounted for 70 percent of the global market share last year, according to the National Energy Administration.