New Delhi, May 1 (SocialNews.XYZ) The global smartphone market declined its fastest ever, down 13 per cent year-on-year in Q1 2020, driven mainly by the impact of COVID-19 in the China market which was the initial epicentre of the pandemic, said a new report.
Samsung led the smartphone market during the quarter capturing one-fifth of the global smartphone shipments, said the report from Counterpoint Research.
This is the first time since Q1 2014, that the smartphone market has fallen below 300 million units in a quarter.
The ongoing effect of the pandemic on the smartphone market is likely to be worse in the second quarter, said the report.
Huawei continued its push in China and surpassed Apple again during the quarter to capture the No. 2 position in the global smartphone market.
The company captured 17 per cent share of the global market, while Apple grabbed 14 per cent.
Apple remained resilient even during the COVID-19 as iPhone shipments declined only 5 per cent year-on-year during the quarter. Xiaomi and Oppo rounded up the top five vendors, according to Counterpoint Research.
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, said the report.
"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," Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research, said in a statement.
This means the replacement cycles are likely to become longer," he added.
While 5G smartphone shipment share increased to 8 per cent in Q1 2020 from 1 per cent in Q4 2019, COVID 19 has also impacted the pace of 5G rollouts in some countries.
"COVID-19 has disrupted the implementation plans of 5G in some countries, with auctions being postponed in markets like Spain and India. However, led by Huawei, the growth of 5G in China remains as expected," said Varun Mishra, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research.
Source: IANS
About Gopi
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz