Global smartphone sales decline 5.7% in third quarter: Gartner

Global smartphone sales to end users totaled 366 million units in the third quarter of 2020, down 5.7 per cent from the same period last year, a Gartner report said on Monday.

Overall global mobile phone sales to end users reached 401 million units, a decline of 8.7 per cent year-over-year.

Samsung held the top position with 22 per cent market share while Huawei was second with 14.1 per cent share.

Xiaomi moved ahead of Apple as the third player for the first time ever with sales of 44.4 million units, compared to Apple's sales of 40.5 million units in the third quarter.

However, smartphone sales continued to remain weaker compared to the same time period in 2019, even with vendors introducing multiple 5G smartphones and governments relaxing shelter-in-place instructions in some geographies.

"Consumers are limiting their discretionary spend even as some lockdown conditions have started to improve," said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner.

"Global smartphone sales experienced moderate growth from the second quarter of 2020 to the third quarter. This was due to pent-up demand from previous quarters."

After two consecutive quarters of a decline of 20 per cent, quarterly smartphone sales have started to show signs of recovery sequentially.

"For the first time this year, smartphone sales to end users in three of the top five markets -- India, Indonesia and Brazil increased, growing 9.3 per cent, 8.5 per cent and 3.3 per cent, respectively," Gupta said.

Xiaomi grew 34.9 per cent in the third quarter, securing 12.1 per cent market share and moving past Apple into the No 3 position.

Xiaomi gained from Huawei's loss including strong performance in China.