Global smartphone sales declined 5.7 percent in the third quarter of 2020, according to Gartner’s latest report.
The research firm’s report reveals that worldwide smartphone sales totalled 366 million units in Q3 2020, which is down from the 388 million reported in the same period a year ago.
“After two consecutive quarters of a decline of 20 percent, quarterly smartphone sales have started to show signs of recovery sequentially,” the report notes.
“However, smartphone sales continued to remain weaker compared to the same time period in 2019, even with vendors introducing multiple 5G smartphones and governments relaxing shelter-in-place instructions in some geographies.”
Among the top five smartphone manufacturers, Samsung held the number one spot with a 22 percent market share and 80.8 million units sold. Huawei followed in second place with a 14 percent market share and 51.8 million units sold.
Xiaomi moved ahead of Apple into the third spot for the first time with 44.4 million units sold, compared to Apple’s 40.5 million. Oppo rounded out the top five with 29.8 million units sold.
The report states that Samsung and Xiaomi were the only vendors in the top five to experience growth in Q3 2020. Xiaomi also benefited from Huawei’s loss along with strong performance in China.
Apple saw a decline of 0.6 percent compared to Q3 2019, which is likely due to the delayed shipment start of its new 2020 line. In previous years, iPhone shipments would begin in mid to late September, but they started four weeks later than usual this year.
Gartner states that consumers were limiting their spending in Q3 2020 even as lockdown restrictions were lifted in parts of the world. The moderate growth that was seen in this quarter was due to pent-up demand from previous quarters this year.
Image credit: Gartner
Source: Gartner
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