The COVID-19 pandemic will not leave everything the same, it has caused the smartphone market to dwindle at its fasted pace ever. This comes from two data from analyst firms called Counterpoint Research and Canalys. And all new reports put the overall drop in global shipments at 13 percent, however, there was a discrepancy in the drop in China through Counterpoint says the drop in China alone was 27 percent while Canalys calculates it at 18 percent.
Irrespective of the stats you see, the overall picture remains the same: it’s the first time smartphone shipments have come under 300 million since 2014, with a precipitous collapse in China preceding falling demand around the world. “By the end of the quarter, as COVID-19 started to spread to other regions, and lockdowns of varying severity were imposed, the pendulum of disruption started to swing from supply to demand,” Counterpoint’s team of analysts writes in a statement.
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The biggest top three smartphone vendors still remain on top and this includes; Samsung, Huawei, and Apple. But, Apple is has been less affected registering the least decline in shipments year on year. Both Canalys and Counterpoint rank Xiaomi fourth, cracking 10 percent of global market share for the first time.
Canalys senior analyst Ben Stanton says “Demand for new devices has been crushed. In February, when the coronavirus was centered on China, vendors were mainly concerned about how to build enough smartphones to meet global demand. But in March, the situation flipped on its head. Smartphone manufacturing has now recovered, but as half the world entered lockdown, sales plummeted.”
Counterpoint associate director Tarun Pathak notes that “From the consumer standpoint unless replacing a broken phone, smartphones are mostly a discretionary purchase. Consumers, under these uncertain times, are likely to withhold making many significant discretionary purchases. This means the replacement cycles are likely to become longer.”
The effects of the pandemic are yet to be felt. Stanton further says that “Most smartphone companies expect Q2 to represent the peak of the coronavirus’ impact. It will test the mettle of the industry, and some companies, especially offline retailers, will fail without government support.”
