Global Smartphone Sales Declined 20% in Q1 2020 Due to COVID-19 [Report]

Global smartphone sales declined 20% in the first quarter of this year due to COVID-19, reports Gartner.

All of the top five smartphone vendors recorded a decline in the first quarter of 2020, except for Xiaomi. Strong sales of Redmi devices in international markets and aggressive online channel focus led Xiaomi to achieve better than expected sales. Although Samsung’s smartphone sales declined 22.7% in the first quarter of 2020, the company still maintained the No. 1 spot with 18.5% market share.

“The coronavirus pandemic caused the global smartphone market to experience its worst decline ever,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner. “Most of the leading Chinese manufacturers and Apple were severely impacted by the temporary closures of their factories in China and reduced consumer spending due to the global shelter-in-place.”


Gartner says that while Apple is not as dependent on China as Huawei, Oppo, or Vivo are, it faced supply constraints and store closures which caused iPhone sales to decline 8.2%.

“Apple had a strong start to the year thanks to its new product line up that saw strong momentum globally. If COVID-19 did not happen, the vendor would have likely seen its iPhone sales reached record level in the quarter. Supply chain disruptions and declining consumer spending put a halt to this positive trend in February,” said Annette Zimmermann, research vice president at Gartner. “Apple’s ability to serve clients via its online stores and its production returning to near normal levels at the end of March helped recover some of the early positive momentum.”

Hit the link or take a look at the chart below for more details...

Read More