Global Smartphone Sales Dropped 20% In Q1 2020

John Cusack

June 2, 2020

It was expected that the ongoing coronavirus situation would have an impact on sales in Q1 2020, and it looks like that is exactly what happened. A new report has been released that shows that smartphone sales dropped by a significant margin in the first quarter of the year, with every major player in the tech space getting hit.

The report that was released today by Gartner reveals that smartphone sales were done 20% overall, though the drops for each individual company varies. Apple, for example, saw iPhones sales drop 8%. They sold an estimated 40.92 million smartphones during Q1 2020, which is down from the 44.57 million during Q1 2019. Things were even worse for Samsung and Huawei, who saw drops of 22.7% and 27.3%, respectively.

“The coronavirus pandemic caused the global smartphone market to experience its worst decline ever,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner. “Most of the leading Chinese manufacturers and Apple were severely impacted by the temporary closures of their factories in China and reduced consumer spending due to the global shelter-in-place.”

It is expected that the second half of the year will see things begin to turn around, as more and more locations open up and lockdown orders are lifted. However, Q2 will surely see similar hits to sales as it dealt with the brunt of the major lockdown orders. We’ll keep you posted as more information becomes available.