Smartphone sales have plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Samsung seeing the biggest drop.
Second quarter smartphone sales dropped 20% worldwide versus the same period a year earlier, according to research published Tuesday by analyst firm Gartner.
Gartner cited the pandemic as the primary culprit, due to shelter-in-place rules that resulted in people spending less on mobile devices.
“Travel restrictions, retail closures and more prudent spending on nonessential products during the pandemic led to the second consecutive quarterly decline in smartphone sales this year,” Gartner senior research director Anshul Gupta said in a statement.
Although Samsung sold the most smartphones out of any company in the second quarter, the company also experienced the biggest year-over-year decline. Samsung sold nearly 55 million smartphones during the period, a 27% year-over-year drop.
“Demand for its flagship S Series smartphones did little to revive its smartphone sales globally,” Gupta said.
Chinese tech giant Huawei was the second leading smartphone company in the latest quarter, selling 54 million smartphones, a nearly 7% year-over-year decline from the previous year.
Coming in at third was Apple, which sold about 38 million iPhones in the latest quarter, which was relatively flat year-over-year.
Gartner noted that Apple had a better quarter than other smartphone vendors because of an improving market in China, where the iPhone-maker sells a significant number devices.
The smartphone market also dropped 20% year-over-year during the first quarter, underscoring the coronavirus pandemic’s prolonged financial hit.
Here’s the full list for the second quarter:
