China smartphone sales nosedive in 1Q20

Sales of smartphones in the China market slumped by 51.9% sequentially and 38.9% on year to their lowest quarterly levels of recent years in the first quarter of 2020 due to the impacts of coronavirus pandemic and seasonality, Digitimes Research has found.

Huawei, Vivo, Oppo, Apple and Xiaomi were the top-five handset vendors in China in the first quarter, combining for a 96.7% market share, up 0.8pp from a quarter earlier. Huawei alone accounted for 40% of the market, adding pressure on other brands, including second-tier and white-box vendors.

Digitimes Research expects demand for handsets in the China market to gradually recover beginning from the second quarter as production resumption at related supply chains there continues with the epidemic under control.

But as China’s economy has yet to fully recover from the virus-induced damage, its smartphone market, despite a sequential rise in the second quarter, will continue to be locked in a decline trend on a yearly basis.

―Digitimes