Top 10 smartphone brands take 88% market share in Q2 2020 as overall sales slide
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Faye Sutton
| 07 October 2020
Worldwide smartphone sales suffered a hit during the second quarter of 2020, dropping by 20.4%. In total, 294.7 million units were sold during the three-month period compared with 370.3 million units in Q2 2019.

samsung s10 vs huawei p30According to data analysed by ComprarAcciones.com, this was a slight improvement on Q1 2020, when 272.5 million units were sold. It marked a drop of 13% from Q4 2019 and was the biggest drop ever witnessed in the smartphone market. It was also the lowest level of sales since 2013.

Among the top five smartphone vendors, Samsung had the highest decline despite selling the highest number of units. It sold a total of 54.7 million units in Q2 2020 compared with 75.1 million units during the same period the previous year. This was a drop of 27.1% year-on-year (YoY). Comparatively, in Q1 2020, Samsung had reported 60 million units sold, marking a 17% drop from Q4 2019.

A key reason for the decline – which stretched across the industry - was the fact that its core markets, Latin America, the US, India and Europe were still struggling from the effects of the pandemic and resulting lockdowns.

In second place, Huawei sold 54.1 million units in Q2 2020, a drop of 6.8% year-on-year.

Apple saw the least decline in sales during the period and was the third top-selling brand globally. The iPhone maker sold 38.3 million units in Q2 2020 compared to 38.5 million units in Q2 2019. This resulted in a drop of 0.4%. According to Gartner, the main reason for this performance was the improved business environment in China.

Realme was the only big brand that reported double-digit growth. It came in seventh in terms of total sales and grew 11% year-on-year during the period.

In the US, sell-through dropped by 25% YoY but online sales grew from 14% in Q2 2019 to 31%. Samsung and Apple performed better than the overall market thanks to their strong presence online.

While Samsung declined by 10%, Apple tumbled by 25%. April was the worst month, with a 50% drop in sell-through.