Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact the global mobile phone industry, Apple’s iPhone sales fared far better than Android handsets in in the second quarter of 2020. Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users totaled 295 million units, a decline of 20.4% in the second quarter of 2020, according to Gartner, Inc.
Among the top five smartphone vendors, Samsung experienced the largest decline in sales while Apple’s smartphone sales were nearly flat year-over-year.
Almost all major markets, except China, continued to face some form of shelter-in-place restrictions for most of the second quarter of 2020 which led to continued declining smartphone demand. “The improved situation in China saw demand recovering quarter- over-quarter,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner. “Travel restrictions, retail closures and more prudent spending on nonessential products during the pandemic led to the second consecutive quarterly decline in smartphone sales this year.”
Even with increased demand, smartphone sales in China declined 7% in the second quarter of 2020, with nearly 94 million smartphones sold. India which adopted rigorous lockdowns (even restricting e-commerce) recorded the worst smartphone sales decline (-46%) among the top five countries in the world.
Samsung sold nearly 55 million smartphones in the second quarter of 2020, a decline of 27.1% year on year (see Table 1). “The COVID-19 pandemic continued to negatively affect Samsung’s performance in the second quarter of 2020,” said Mr. Gupta. “Demand for its flagship S Series smartphones did little to revive its smartphone sales globally.”
Worldwide Top 5 Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q20 (Thousands of Units)
Source: Gartner, Inc. (August 2020)
Apple sold 38 million iPhones in the second quarter of 2020, a decline of 0.4% year-over- year. “Apple’s iPhone sales fared better in the quarter than most smartphone vendors in the market and also grew sales quarter-over-quarter,” said Annette Zimmermann, research vice president at Gartner. “The improved business environment in China helped Apple achieve growth in the country. In addition, the introduction of the new iPhone SE encouraged users of older phones upgrade their smartphones.”
MacDailyNews Take: The cream rises.
The fact that iPhone sales have not done as bad as others is partially due to the customer base that buys these phones. iPhones address the high to mid range market and the impact of COVID-19 is significantly less for those on high to mid incomes with fewer people in those segments losing their jobs or being furloughed.
What are “high to mid income” levels?
I think even poor people can own an iPhone SE and using Ting Mobile if they don’t mind skipping a few meals.
“poor people”
rich people
millions in between these two groups, with most identifying with latter when in reality much closer to the former.
Why is Tim Cook censoring truth?
Apple rejects Facebook app that tells users that Apple takes 30% cut of in-app purchases
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/28/apple-rejects-facebook-app-that-says-apple-takes-30percent-cut.html