That the first quarter of the year was going to be tough was predictable. Now we begin to see how much. Gartner places the drop in sales in the smartphone market at 20.2%, where Apple would have fallen by 8.2%. It is the second-largest manufacturer best stopped since Xiaomi has managed to grow slightly despite the great challenge of the COVID-19. The figures are quite interesting.
An 8.2% drop in iPhone sales
As usual, there are some things to keep in mind before analyzing the numbers released by analytics companies. For a couple of years, Apple has stopped disclosing the units sold for its products (like other companies), so this type of firm uses different methods to estimate sales. Consequently, they do not have to reflect exact numbers. Although they do serve to give us an idea of the approximate panorama of the market.
That said, there is no doubt that the pandemic and its global escalation were going to have an impact on smartphone sales. In the case of Apple and according to Gartner’s calculations, those of Cupertino would have sold almost 41 million units in Q1 2020. In the same period of the previous year, the company sold 44.5 million iPhones.
If we look at market shares, this is the perfect opportunity to see one of its most curious qualities. iPhone sales fell 8.2%, but its market share rose from 11.9% to 13.7%. This is possible because the market as a whole also contracts, but it does so at a “speed” higher than Apple with a 20.2% drop. Therefore, the iPhone manages to expand its share and does so at the expense of others.
Viewed differently, in Q1 2019, 375 million smartphones are sold, while in Q1 2020, 299 million units are moving. The drop in the total “pie” is greater than the iPhone’s decrease, increasing the relative size of your slice.
A top 5 from which only Xiaomi is saved
Looking at the ranking prepared by Gartner, there is only one single manufacturer that is saved from the drop in sales: Xiaomi. The Chinese company has been able to counter the difficult world situation with the launch of the Redmi family, which are quite popular. Thanks to this and according to Gartner’s calculations, Xiaomi has been able to grow 1.4%.
As for the rest of the big manufacturers, they go badly. Samsung falls 22.7%, Huawei 27.3% and OPPO 19.1%. The rest of minor brands together fell by 24.2%. The case of the Koreans is striking since their presence in China is a testimonial as we saw long ago. Indigenous brands have eaten almost all the ground.
As for Huawei, it is still involved in a dispute with the United States that forces it to dispense with hardware and software that involves companies in the country. This translates into an absence of Google services and apps outside of China, significantly affecting its value proposition in the rest of the world.
Turning to Apple, Gartner indicates that “it had a strong start to the year thanks to its new product line and strong global push,” referring to the iPhone 11. If the pandemic had not appeared, they estimate that they would have broken the record for the quarter. The shock caused by the pandemic in both production and demand began in February, although by the end of March manufacturing had already returned to almost its usual level. An end that Cook already confirmed in the previous results conference.