Xiaomi moved past Apple into the No. 3 worldwide supplier position as smartphone sales to end-users globally totalled 366 million units in Q3 2020 (down 5.7% from Q3 2019).
According to a new Gartner report, Xiaomi grew 34.9% in Q3 2020, securing 12.1% market share while overall global mobile phone sales to end users totalled 401 million units, a decline of 8.7% year-over-year.
This year, after two consecutive quarters of 20% decline, quarterly smartphone sales have started to show signs of recovery. Despite that growth, smartphone sales remain weaker compared to the same time in 2019-- even with vendors introducing multiple 5G smartphones and governments relaxing shelter-in-place instructions in some geographies.
“Consumers are limiting their discretionary spend even as some lockdown conditions have started to improve,” says Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner. “Global smartphone sales experienced moderate growth from the second quarter of 2020 to the third quarter. This was due to pent-up demand from previous quarters.”
Economic uncertainties and continued fear of the next wave of the pandemic continue to put pressure on nonessential spending through the end of 2020. The delay in 5G network upgrades has also limited the opportunity for smartphone vendors.
Among the top five smartphone manufacturers, Samsung held the No. 1 position with 22% market share (See Table 1). Xiaomi moved ahead of Apple into the No. 3 position for the first time ever with sales of 44.4 million units compared to Apple’s sales of 40.5 million units in the third quarter of 2020.
“Early signs of recovery can be seen in a few markets, including parts of mature Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Near normal conditions in China improved smartphone production to fill in the supply gap in the third quarter which benefited sales to some extent,” adds Gupta. “For the first time this year, smartphone sales to end users in three of the top five markets i.e., India, Indonesia and Brazil increased, growing 9.3%, 8.5% and 3.3%, respectively.”
Samsung and Xiaomi were the only vendors in the top five to experience growth in Q3 2020. Samsung benefited from its strong positioning amongst Android users and recorded sales of 80.8 million units. Xiaomi grew 34.9% in the third quarter of 2020, securing 12.1% market share and moving past Apple into the No. 3 position. Xiaomi gained from Huawei’s loss including strong performance in China.
“Apple sold 40.5 million units in the third quarter of 2020, a decline of 0.6% as compared to 2019,” said Annette Zimmermann, research VP Gartner. “The slight decrease was mainly due to Apple’s delayed shipment start of its new 2020 iPhone generation, which in previous years would always start mid/end September. This year, the launch event and shipment start began 4 weeks later than usual.”
Gartner clients can learn more in the report Market Share: PCs, Ultramobiles and Mobile Phones, All Countries, 3Q20 Update.
