Tech and Telecom

Smartphone Market Will Decline by 10% in 1H 2020: Report

The coronavirus outbreak has caused numerous setbacks in the tech world. Several phone makers have had to reschedule their launch events and production. As a result, the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that the smartphone market will fall by 10.6% in the first half of 2020 alone.

The global smartphone market was expected to grow this year due to the introduction of new form factors and affordable devices becoming more common than ever. However, the recent virus situation has caused several market experts to re-evaluate their previous calculations.

According to the report, the main reason behind this decline is the disruption in the supply chain due to the stoppage of logistics and production facilities in China. Companies will struggle to settle the imbalance between demand and supply for quite a while and normal activities aren’t expected to resume until Q3 2020. The Chinese market is expected to suffer a decline of 40% in the first quarter of 2020.

Sangeetika Srivastava, senior research analyst at IDC said:

Component shortages, factory shutdowns, quarantine mandates, logistics, and travel restrictions will create hindrances for smartphone vendors to produce handsets and roll out new devices. The overall scenario is expected to stabilize from the third quarter of the year as the COVID-19 situation hopefully improves and 5G plans pick up the pace globally.

As for the future, IDC predicts that the smartphone market will soar once again in 2021 and this will largely be fueled by the rise of global 5G availability and supporting mobile phones becoming significantly cheaper.

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Published by
Aasil Ahmed