New data released by Gartner show that the smartphone market fell by 5,7% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2020 and it is probably easy to understand why.
With the global problem health, very few are interested in new devices, and Gartner reports that sales are down 336 millions units in the last quarter.
Of course there are signs of recovery, but it is clear that the smartphone market is far from the levels of 2019.
The biggest change that happened in the third quarter of this year was Apple. The company dropped to fourth place as Xiaomi managed to overtake it for the first time.
Samsung remains the number one company with 22 percent market share and over 80,8 million phones to be released, while Huawei is in second place with a 14,1 percent share and 51,8 million phones sold. Xiaomi is in third place with a 12,1% share after managing to ship 44,4 million phones. Apple is in fourth place with an 11,1% share as iPhones sold reached 40,5 million.
"Apple sold 40,5 million units in the third quarter of 2020, down 0,6% from 2019." Reported Annette Carpenter, vice president at Gartner. “The slight decrease is mainly due to the delayed start of shipping of the new generation iPhone 2020, which in previous years would always start in mid or late September. This year, the mission started 4 weeks later.”
Apple could claim third place again next quarter, when the new iPhones will help build more market share.