Global smartphone shipments to grow by 50 percent in Q1 2021: report

Global smartphone shipments are expected to grow by 50 percent in Q1 2021, largely due to iPhone 12 sales.

Digitimes Research’s latest report says the increase will also be led by Chinese brands ramping up shipments hoping to increase market share amid Huawei’s ongoing woes.

The report estimates that 340 million smartphone units will be shipped in the first quarter of 2021, and Apple iPhone shipments are expected to total 60 million units.

“Apple is likely to be the top vendor for a six-month period that ends March 31, 2021, with total shipments of over 150 million units, up 38 percent from the same period of a year earlier,” Digitimes states.

Samsung is expected to rank second, with its shipments slightly declining in the six-month period. Xiaomi is expected to rank third with its shipments totalling 90 million units. The report estimates that Huawei will ship less than 20 million smartphones in the quarter and rank sixth overall.

“Global shipments of 5G-enabled phones are expected to reach over 600 million units in 2021 compared to 280 million units shipped a year earlier, Digitimes Research estimates,” the report notes.

Digitimes estimates that global smartphone shipments will see a 10-13 percent increase in 2021 for a total of over 1.4 billion units shipped.

Source: Digitimes