Worst Smartphone Sales Since 2013
Smartphone sales results from the first half of 2020 show biggest drops in history.
There is no denying that most industries are struggling with bigger or smaller problems caused by the coronavirus. The recession has also affected the rapidly growing smartphone market. We are seeing the biggest drop in sales since 2013!
In the first quarter of 2020, consumers bough around 272 million phones - 13% less than in the first quarter of 2019. This is obviously an average decrease, as the value varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. The biggest losses were recorded by Samsung and Huawei (about 17%), while Xiaomi and Vivo had some increases (9% and 3% respectively).
It seems normal that in hard and uncertain times people do not want to spend more and more money on electronic devices. At the end of last year the condition of the market was quite good, so one can quite safely assume that it was the pandemic that caused the sales drop. Moreover, for some time the world's largest manufacturing center (China) was completely paralysed by the virus, so production capacity was also lower.
What's more, research and consulting company Gartner predicts that the results for the second quarter of the year (during which the coronavirus spread around the world) will be even worse. It is predicted that no one will avoid recession, not even companies that have benefited from the losses of the giants in the first quarter. All indications are that only Apple has managed to more or less contain the situation. Gartner comments on the data as follows: “Travel restrictions, retail closures and more prudent spending on nonessential products during the pandemic led to the second consecutive quarterly decline in smartphone sales this year.”.
It seems that one should not expect significant increases in the coming months, but rather a slow rebound.
