Global smartphone sales to end-users declined 5.7 per cent year-over-year, totalling 366 million units in Q3 2020, according to Gartner, Inc.
Overall, the global mobile phone sales to end users were down by 8.7 per cent year-over-year to 401 million units in
“Consumers are limiting their discretionary spend even as some lockdown conditions have started to improve,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner as per an official release. “Global smartphone sales experienced moderate growth from the second quarter of 2020 to the third quarter. This was due to pent-up demand from previous quarters.”
The slow recovery was partially due to low nonessential spending owing to economic uncertainties and continued fear of the next wave of the pandemic. The delay in 5G network upgrades has also negatively impacted smartphone vendors, as per the report.
However, when it comes to India, smartphone sales had increased by 9.3 per cent in Q3.
“Early signs of recovery can be seen in a few markets, including parts of mature Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Near normal conditions in China improved smartphone production to fill in the supply gap in the third quarter, which benefited sales to some extent,” said Gupta. “For the first time this year, smartphone sales to end-users in three of the top five markets, i.e., India, Indonesia and Brazil increased, growing 9.3%, 8.5% and 3.3%, respectively.”
Samsung grabbed the top spot in global smartphone sales with a 22 per cent market share, followed by Huawei with a 14.1 per cent share. Xiaomi moved ahead of Apple to grab the position for the first time ever with sales of 44.4 million units. Apple sold 40.5 million units in Q3 2020. Xiaomi and Apple had a market share of 12.1 per cent and 11.1 per cent, respectively. Oppo took the fifty spot with an 8.2 per cent market share.
