Global smartphone sales decline by 20% in Q1 2020 due to Covid-19

Apple's iPhone sales declined 8.2%, totaling 41 million units in the first quarter of 2020.

Apple captured a 11.9% market share in Q1 2019. This increased to 13.7% in Q1 2020. (REUTERS)

The Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the global economy. Smartphone industry is no stranger to this effect. Now, a new report details the impact the ongoing pandemic has had on the mobile industry.

According to a report by Gartner, the global smartphone sales declined by a record 20.2% in the first quarter of 2020. “The coronavirus pandemic caused the global smartphone market to experience its worst decline ever...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,” Anshul Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner said in a statement.

All the top five smartphone vendors, which include Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi and Oppo witnessed a decline in the first quarter of the year. Although Samsung's smartphone sales declined 22.7% in Q1 2020, it still maintained the top spot with 18.5% market share. The company had commanded a 19.% market share during the same period last year.

The report notes that Huawei, of all the companies, was worst hit in terms of the sales. Sales of Huawei smartphones fell to 42.5 million units, which marks a 27.3% decline year-over-year. Despite that, Huawei held on to the second spot in the global smartphone market with a 14.2% market share. “It has developed the Huawei Mobile Service (HMS) ecosystem, but with the lack of popular Google apps and Google Play store, Huawei is unlikely to attract new smartphone buyers in international markets,” Gupta added.

Coming to Apple, the company's iPhone sales declined 8.2%, totaling 41 million units in the first quarter of 2020. Interestingly, despite a decline in iPhone sales, Apple managed to perform better than last year. Apple captured a 11.9% market share in Q1 2019. This increased to 13.7% in Q1 2020.

“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 reach record level in the quarter...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,” said Annette Zimmermann, research vice president at Gartner said in a statement.

Xiaomi, on the other hand, was least impacted by the pandemic. The company had sold 27,424 million units back in Q1 2020. It sold 27,817 million units in Q1 2020. In addition to this, the company's market share increased from 7.3% in Q1 2019 to 9.3% in Q1 2020.

Oppo's smartphone sales fell 19.1% in the first quarter of 2020. The company sold 23,949 million units in Q1 2020 compared to 29,589 million units during the same time last year.