Smartphone industry decline in Q2

All the data analytics companies agree: the smart-phone market slowed down in the most difficult quarter since 2013, a year of real discontinuity for mobile telephony. And for the first time significantly. The reason has name and surname: the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first quarter of the year, the Coronavirus caused the largest decline ever experienced. We do not want to linger further with the negativities, because in reality not a few smartphones have been sold. The countervalue of shipment data compared to 2019 is simply negative, in an undeserved way for the brands that have continued to engage and engage consumers with new models.

The lockdown did not help and in any case, especially in Europa, the smartphone is a product that is preferably purchased at the point of sale and in installments, whether hidden in the operator’s bill or in another form. Broadening the gaze globally, the Coronavirus has given no respite in the markets We have compared the shipping data collected by Idc, Strategy Analytics and Canalys. Which, respectively, indicated a total of devices distributed equal to 275.8 million, 274.8 million and 272.5 million. Let’s say that the average is around 274 million units circulating in Q1 20. This means that for Idc there was a decrease in volume equal to 11.7% (312.3 million in 2019), for Strategy Analytics on 17 % (330.4 million in 2019) and 13% for Canalys (313.9 million in 2019). In practice, an average decrease in 2020 of around 14% compared to the average volume compared in 2019 of about 320 million units.

For Nabila Popal, director of research at Idc, the probwith the highest numerical impact: China and India, above all, whose volume has been significantly reduced.

Not even Apple was immune from the negativities, with a 2.5% decline in total revenue due to lower demand for hardware. This is the phrase of Tim Cook, CEO of the Cupertino company, who, for the writer, best photographs what brands have done so far: “This would not have been the fiscal quarter in the absence of the pandemic. Having said that, I don’t think I remember a similar period in the past and for this reason I can’t be more proud of what was done and how it was done”. A thought that we feel we can extend to any other brand, despite the cold numbers.