During this critical situation when the whole world is struggling in the tech industry has been hit by the pandemic the smartphone shipment falls to 13 per cent to 272 million units. In the first quarter, the demand for mobile phones dipped. Samsung managed to regain its first position but its shipment fell 17 per cent to 60 million.
According to a report by Canalys, the smartphone market was doing good when it entered 2020. But in February when coronavirus was spreading in China the brands were mostly worried about how they were going to meet the global demand as most of the industries were shut. When the situation came into control, half of the world entered lockdown.
Canalys Senior Analyst Ben Stanton said, “Smartphone manufacturing has now recovered, but as half the world entered a lockdown, sales plummeted. Poor business results, employee redundancies and furloughs are causing a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty. Smartphones are still a necessity for most people, and device availability in online channels has enabled those who need to replace a broken or lost phone to do so. But many customers who would have bought a new smartphone as a luxury have delayed that purchase.”
According to the report, Smasung was one of the brands who could withstand the impact. Huawei shipped 49 million, as its mix continues to shift toward China and away from overseas markets due to its US Entity List status. Due to its ongoing US Entity List problems its shipment dropped down to 35%.
Whereas Apple was least affected due to the sale of the iPhone 11 in the early stages of the quarter. To overcome the loss the company just launched the iPhone SE. The company aims to increase the shipment of its device as its flagship customers await 5G devices. Apple is currently the third-largest vendor, down 8% with 37 million shipments. Whereas Xioami is going well and it continued to retain its position in the top five list with a 9% growth to hit 30 million units whereas Vivo takes the fifth position with 24 million units, up 3%.
Quarter second of 2020 will show the peak of the coronavirus’ impact. As countries start lifting the lockdown the full economic damage will become visible.
The Counterpoint report also says that “the global smartphone market declined the fastest ever, -13% YoY, during the quarter 5G smartphone shipment share, increased to 8% in Q1 2020 from 1% in Q4 2019 Xiaomi (7%) YoY, and Realme (157% YoY) were the only major brands to achieve growth Apple remained resilient even during the COVID-19 as iPhone shipments declined only 5% YoY Q1 2020”
According to the report, the combined market share of the top 10 brands has increased to 83%, from 80% in Q1 2019. The ongoing effect of the pandemic on the smartphone market is likely to be worse in the second quarter of 2020. The impact on the OEMs will depend on the markets, channels, and price bands they operate in with some OEMs affected more than others.
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