{"id":404675,"date":"2020-06-04T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T06:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=404675"},"modified":"2020-06-04T08:00:44","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T06:00:44","slug":"smartphone-shipments-expected-to-fall-a-record-12-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/404675\/smartphone-shipments-expected-to-fall-a-record-12-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Smartphone shipments expected to fall a record 12% in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to fall by 11.9% this year – their biggest annual drop ever – indicating things are going to get worse for the industry before they get better.<\/p>\n

In its latest market forecast, research firm IDC anticipates shipments of 1.2 billion in 2020, down from just under 1.4 billion last year.<\/p>\n

The annual forecast follows a record 11.7% year-on-year drop in the three months ending March. The latest projections are a dramatic revision of an annual forecast by IDC in February, after the virus first hit, that predicted a 2.3% decline.<\/p>\n

Pinning the blame on the coronavirus outbreak and its effects on both supply and demand, the forecast points to an upswing in sales and shipments in 2021, suggesting that some purchases will be delayed rather than entirely forgone.<\/p>\n

The proliferation of fifth-generation wireless services will also help rekindle consumer interest, the researchers said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat started as a supply-side crisis has evolved into a global demand-side problem,\u201d Sangeetika Srivastava, an analyst for IDC\u2019s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cNationwide lockdowns and rising unemployment have reduced consumer confidence and reprioritized spending towards essential goods, directly impacting the uptake of smartphones in the short term.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s domestic market will only see a single-digit decline, according to IDC, pointing to the country\u2019s recovery from the initial outbreak. Europe, on the other hand, has suffered a heavier toll from Covid-19 and is expected to experience deeper falls in spending and demand, the researchers added.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the brighter side, 5G is expected to be a catalyst throughout the forecast period, which will play a vital role in worldwide smartphone market recovery in 2021,\u201d said Srivastava.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Mobile operators will stop getting access to free spectrum in November<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to fall by 11.9% this year – their biggest annual drop ever – indicating things are going to get worse for the industry before they get better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":404681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,625],"class_list":["post-404675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-idc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":404685,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404675\/revisions\/404685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}