Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the global smartphone shipments encountered a steep decline. A fresh survey of Digital Research reveals that the shipments greatly improved in the third quarter when the situation started to normalize across the world. While the global smartphone shipments met with positive results in Q3, there was a decline or 6 percent on year-on-year basis.
The report states that with government supporting people during the lockdown period through relief packages and people have no requirement to travel have allowed them to spend more on smartphones. With the holiday season fast approaching, people are looking forward to purchase new phones for their families.
Coming back to Digitimes Research, it has been found that Samsung led the market in Q3, and the second place was taken by Huawei. It seems that Huawei’s business heavily impacted due to the U.S. sanctions that do not allow it to work with US-based firms. With the Mate 40 series announced, Huawei may achieve better results in Q4.
Samsung managed to lead the market since the Note 20 series with 5G support was announced and made available for purchase in Q3. The South Korean company has also been launching cheaper 5G phones in the market.
Smartphone OEMs are expected to ship 1.22 billion units this year, claims the market research survey. In July, it forecasted that 1.15 smartphones will be shipped in 2020. In China, 5G phones are said to account for 70 precent of annual shipments this year. While on the global front, 5G phones may account for 20 percent of the total smartphone shipments.