Smartphone sales to end-users decreased 5.7 percent to 366 million units in the third quarter of 2020, according to Gartner report.
Overall global mobile phone sales to end users totaled 401 million units, a decline of 8.7 percent year-over-year.

Economic uncertainties and continued fear of the next wave of the pandemic continue to put pressure on nonessential spending through the end of 2020. The delay in 5G network upgrades has also limited the opportunity for smartphone vendors.

Samsung held the No. 1 position with 22 percent market share.

Xiaomi moved ahead of Apple into the No. 3 position 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 of 2020.

“Early signs of recovery can be seen in a few markets, including parts of mature Asia Pacific and Latin America. Near normal conditions in China improved smartphone production to fill in the supply gap in the third quarter which benefited sales to some extent,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner.

Smartphone sales to end users in India rose 9.3 percent in the third quarter of 2020.

Smartphone sales to end users in Indonesia increased 8.5 percent in the third quarter of 2020.

Smartphone sales to end users in Brazil grew 3.3 percent in the third quarter of 2020.

India, Indonesia and Brazil are the three of the top five smartphone markets.

Samsung and Xiaomi were the only vendors in the top five to experience growth in the third quarter of 2020.

Samsung benefited from its strong positioning amongst Android users and recorded sales of 80.8 million units.

Xiaomi grew 34.9 percent in the third quarter of 2020, securing 12.1 percent market share and moving past Apple into the No. 3 position. Xiaomi gained from Huawei’s loss including strong performance in China.

Apple sold 40.5 million units in the third quarter of 2020, a decline of 0.6 percent as compared to 2019.

“The drop was mainly due to Apple’s delayed shipment start of its 2020 iPhone generation, which in previous years would always start mid/end September. This year, the launch event and shipment start began 4 weeks later than usual,” Annette Zimmermann, research vice president at Gartner, said.