Phone Shipments For 2020 Expected To Be The Lowest In A Decade

We’ve already seen the impact of COVID-19 in the smartphone market. Samsung has reportedly sold 60% Galaxy S20 units compared to S10 units, and YoY shipments for smartphones in February fell by 38%.

Following this news it became pretty obvious that the mobile phone industry is going to have a pretty rough 2020. It wasn’t clear just how bad it would be but CCS Insights have put a number to the madness. They expect that 250 MILLION fewer mobile phones will be shipped this year compared to 2019. That’s a big number and it will no doubt have huge implications.

For companies like Sony, HTC and LG who haven’t done as great as they did years ago, you have to wonder what they’ll come out the other side looking like… If they come out at all (especially HTC).

Q2 which we just entered will be the most disastrous, as a 29% drop will be witnessed in combined shipments. The problem for most consumers is after this crisis ends, they are no guarantees regarding where they will be getting their next dollar. Given that context buying a mobile phone becomes of no concern as most just have bigger fish to try.

CCS is hopeful of the performance of the mobile phone industry going forward expecting a slight improvement in 2021. The shipments in 2021 will still be lower than 2019’s sales number which is a pretty dark indicator of just how impactful the Coronavirus will be on the global economy.