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Samsung’s Q1 smartphone shipments down 18 pct on virus impact: report

May 26, 2020

Samsung Electronics Co.’s smartphone shipments plunged 18 percent on-year in the first quarter of the year amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, a report showed Tuesday, although it remained the top smartphone vendor around the globe.

The South Korean tech firm shipped 59 million smartphones in the January-March period, down from 72 million units a year earlier, according to market tracker Counterpoint Research.

Samsung’s share of the global smartphone market stood at 20 percent in the first quarter, down 1 percentage point from a year ago.

This photo, taken on April 29, 2020, shows Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S20 smartphones displayed at a store in Seoul. (Yonhap)

This photo, taken on April 29, 2020, shows Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy S20 smartphones displayed at a store in Seoul. (Yonhap)

Samsung was followed by China’s Huawei Technologies Co. with a 17 percent market share and U.S. tech titan Apple Inc. with 14 percent.

South Korea’s No. 2 tech firm, LG Electronics Inc., took a 2 percent share in the first quarter, with its first-quarter smartphone shipments dropping more than 27 percent on-year to 5 million units.

Due to the virus impact, Counterpoint Research said global smartphone shipments stood at only 295 million units in the first quarter, the first time in six years that the figure dropped below 300 million. Compared to a year ago, the shipments dropped 13 percent.