Report: Global smartphone market fell 13% YoY in the first quarter of 2020

According to Counterpoint Research, the global smartphone market fell 13% YoY in Q1 2020. A total of 295 million smartphones were shipped globally during the first quarter, down from 341 million in the Q1 2019.

Nearly all major smartphone makers witnessed a decline in shipments during the quarter, the only brands that achieved growth in shipments in Q1 2020 were Xiaomi and Realme. Xiaomi’s shipments increased 7% YoY, while Realme registered an impressive 157% rise in shipments.

Samsung’s shipments declined 18% compared to Q1 2019, while Huawei declined 17% YoY, but Apple remained in the third position in Q1 2020 and saw iPhone shipments decline by only 5%. Importantly, Apple’s global market share increased by 2% YoY, despite the slight decline in shipments.

Counterpoint says:

“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.

Lockdowns in most parts of the world will be lifted in a staggered way, which will mean it could take time before the retail activity completely resumes. Even after the lockdown ends, there will likely be changes consumer spending patterns. Online channels are likely to be preferred and there will likely be shifts in the price band distribution with some consumers opting for a cheaper device, which could lead to a decrease in overall ASPs.”

While IDC notes:

“What started as primarily a supply-side problem initially limited to China has grown into a global economic crisis with the demand-side impact starting to show by the end of the quarter,” said Nabila Popal, IDC worldwide mobile device trackers research director.

“While the supply chain in China started to recover at end of the quarter, as IDC expected, major economies around the world went into complete lockdown causing consumer demand to flatline.”

According to Canalys, Apple’s market share increasing from 7.3% to 8.5% thanks to a smaller fall than almost all other brands.

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung’s now holding 21.2% of the global smartphone market by shipments, followed by Huawei and Apple.

Another research from TrendForce predicts the global smartphone shipments are expected to fall further in the second quarter, a record 16.5% fall in production.