In what is pretty much expected news, the global smartphone market has met with a pretty steep decline this year and will continue to experience low numbers the next few months. Given the state of most countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, both shipping and production of devices are affected. The latest numbers from a research firm show that the first quarter of 2020 had a 13% decline on smartphone shipments year on year and it’s the first time it fell below 300 million units since 2014.
According to Counterpoint Research’s Market Monitor Service, the 13% decline of the smartphone market is the fastest decline ever for the 1st quarter of the year. The shipments fell below 300 million units from January to March 2020 and it’s actually the first time this has happened since the first quarter of 2014. This is in part due to the 27% decline in China, which is due to both lower consumer demand and disruption in production and shipment.
Xiaomi and Realme are the only exceptions in terms of the decline in shipments with the former increasing 7% and the latter getting an amazing 157% but these are year on year numbers of course. The main reason for this increase is that India went on lockdown pretty late and both companies have a pretty huge market in that country. But the other main brands suffered losses like Samsung (18%), Huawei (17%), and Apple (5%).
The slight good news for the industry is that the share of 5G smartphones actually increased to 8% for Q1 of 2020 as compared to 1% in Q4 2019. Hopefully, the good numbers for 5G-capable devices will help the numbers for the second half of 2020, although the pace of these rollouts per country is of course affected by all the quarantines and lockdowns. Some countries like Spain and India have postponed 5G implementation.
Trendforce has predicted that global smartphone shipments will experience further decline in the second quarter of 2020. Most industries are expecting this anyway, but the electronic device market will probably be one of the hardest-hit even after nation-wide quarantines are lifted.
