Digitimes Research said yesterday that, after three consecutive years of decline between 2018 and 2020, global smartphone shipments in 2024 are expected to grow at a double-digit rate or 150 million units. This growth will be accelerated by the construction of the 5G infrastructure and the commercial operations process in Japan, Western Europe, and the United States. This is how the revolution in the smartphone market begins.
Smartphone market prepares for a revolution
In the next five years, with the increase in the number of commercial 5G networks, and the expansion of coverage, the demand for 5G smartphones will increase. Digitimes Research predicts that the supply of basic 5G or 4G equipment in emerging markets will also boost global smartphone shipments. They are expected to reach 1.5 and 1.7 billion in 2023 and 2025, respectively.
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics and Apple will be in the top two positions for smartphone shipments in 2024. They will be followed by OPPO, VIVO, and Xiaomi. Transsion, based in Shenzhen, will sell basic smartphones from various brands in Africa and South Asia. Therefore, it will be in sixth place. Huawei, which was affected by the American ban, is expected to fall to seventh place.
Digitimes Research also predicts that global shipments of 5G smartphones will reach 200 million units in 2024. Then they are expected to reach 1.22 billion units in 2025.
According to Canalys data, the top 5 global smartphone brands in the second quarter of 2020 were Huawei, Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, and OPPO.
Compared to 370.3 million units in the second quarter of 2019, overall smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2020 decreased by 20.4% to 294.7 million units. The leaders have not changed much. Samsung and Huawei each won 20% of the market share. At the same time, Apple is in third place with a market share of 13.5%. Samsung’s smartphone shipments were 54.7 million units. It is less than 75.1 million units in the second quarter of 2019 and 60 million units in the first quarter of 2020.
Huawei shipments were 54.1 million units. Compared to 58 million units in the second quarter of 2019, this is not a big change. It also represents 42.6% of the Chinese market. Apple sold 38.3 million smartphones in the second quarter of 2020. Thus, it almost reached 38.5 million in the second quarter of 2019. Meanwhile, Gartner attributed Apple’s good performance to the improvement of China’s business environment, as noted in the GizChina website.
