According to a new report from the known analytical agency Canalys, China’s smartphone market suffered a sizeable blow in the first quarter of 2020. The primary reason for this is undoubtedly the Coronavirus pandemic that had devastated the country during its initial outbreak.
In the Canalys report, the Chinese smartphone market only saw 73 million units being shipped in Q1 of 2020. This is a notable decline of 18 percent during the same period back in 2019. While the smartphone market, in general, was seeing stagnation, the viral outbreak seemed to have had a severe negative impact on the industry globally. However, the top five OEMs all reported on seeing better than expected results during this time.
In China, Huawei leads the smartphone market, with financial reports revealing an impressive performance for the first quarter. The Chinese tech giant was also the only vendor that actually saw a growth in shipments during this time of crisis (we had previously reported on this as through a report regarding the Chinese market by Counterpoint Research). Oppo and Vivo took up the second and third place, with shipment falling by 26 percent and 19 percent respectively.
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An important factor that prevented the overall smartphone market in China from declining was also linked to government actions. The electronic product and its vendors were listed by the government as essential items, which basically allowed them to continue production and regain its footings. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for other major markets that are seeing complete shutdown, like India.
According to Canalys analyst, Mo Jia, “The vendors with the greatest financial resources, supply chain control and negotiating power with the channel are recovering fastest, while smaller vendors have been brought down. The coronavirus crisis has pushed the market toward the top five, which now account for nearly 95% of the total market.” Interestingly, Huawei with its 5G offerings had best leveraged the market to its favor and managed to pull ahead of its competitors.
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