The virus pandemic has affected many business sectors around the world. The airline industry has probably taken the worst hit as no one is keen on travelling for obvious reasons.
Jobs are also affected as companies are dropping employees in a bit to save some cash to pay off the bills. The U.S. has reported that 6.6 million people back in April 2020 have lost their jobs, and the University of Chicago said that 42 percent of job losses would be permanent.
But the airlines and general workforces are not the only ones that are affected. The global smartphone industry also took a rather large hit during the pandemic.
During the first three months of 2020, the smartphone industry saw a 20 percent drop in sales, according to research firm Gartner.
The firm said that the drop was likely related to people buying only essentials during the lockdown period, and a smartphone was considered nonessential.
It also said that the closure of factories in China – who produces phone for most of the brands – played a part in the decline in sales.
Senior researcher at Gartner, Anshul Gupta said, "The coronavirus pandemic caused the global smartphone market to experience its worst decline ever. Most of the leading Chinese manufacturers and Apple were severely impacted by the temporary closures of their factories in China and reduced consumer spending due to the global shelter-in-place."
No phone manufacturer was spared from the drop in sales. The firm said that even major players like Samsung, Huawei, and Apple all reported a drop in sales during the first quarter of 2020.
Samsung still holds 18.5 percent of the mobile market even after seeing more than 22 percent drop. Gartner said that Samsung is still number one because of the lack of presence in China.
Huawei holds 14.2 percent of the market but saw a drop of 27 percent. Gartner also took into account the U.S. sanction that forbids U.S. based companies from working with them.
And Apple, who holds 13.7 percent of the market, saw the smallest drop of 8 percent.
Only Xiaomi saw a growth of 1.4 percent. While that number could have been bigger but because Xiaomi and its sub-brand Redmi focuses on online sales, it still managed to keep its prices low, which in turn contributed to its small growth.
Research vice president at Gartner Annette Zimmermann said, "Apple had a strong start to the year thanks to its new product line up that saw strong momentum globally.
"Apple's ability to serve clients via its online stores and its production returning to near normal levels at the end of March helped recover some of the early positive momentum."
The research firm also predicted at the end of May 2020 shipments of devices such as PCs, tablets, and mobile phones will decline by 13.6 percent globally this year.
It also said that mobile phone shipments would drop as well by 14.6 percent because people are planning to hold on to their older phones in an attempt to reduce spending.
In the first quarter of 2019, 373 million smartphones were sold, compared to 2020, which only saw 299 million units sold.
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