The worldwide smartphone market recorded its largest year-on-year decline during the first quarter of 2020, while China’s market experienced a 20.3% drop in shipments.

Worldwide smartphone shipments decreased 11.7% as companies aggregately shipped 275.8-million smartphones during the first three months of the year, market intelligence and advisory services firm International Data Corporation (IDC) says.

“Although the first quarter usually experiences a sequential quarter-on-quarter decline in shipments, with the average sequential decline over the last three years hovering between –15% to –20%, this is the largest yearly decline ever,” the IDC says, discussing preliminary data from its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

The first quarter marked the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and the peak of the lockdowns in China, which extended to the rest of the world by the end of the quarter.

China experienced the largest regional decline, with smartphone shipments plunging 20.3% year-on-year from 83.6-million units a year ago to 66.6-million units in the first quarter of 2020.

“This marked the largest decline ever in China as the market was hit by both supply chain disruptions and a demand slump owing to lockdowns and the Covid-19 pandemic,” says IDC Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers research director Nabila Popal.

The global smartphone supply chain dependence on China – which constitutes almost a quarter of worldwide shipments – also caused major challenges as the quarter progressed.

“What started as primarily a supply-side problem initially limited to China has grown into a global economic crisis with the demand-side impact starting to show by the end of the quarter,” she comments.

Other regions that contributed to the drastic worldwide decline were the US and Western Europe, which declined by 16.1% and 18.3% respectively.

“While the supply chain in China started to recover at the end of the quarter, major economies around the world went into complete lockdown, causing consumer demand to flatline. Consumers get increasingly cautious about their spending in such uncertain times and it is hard to think smartphone purchases will not suffer as a result,” adds IDC research manager Will Wong.

The drop in demand, combined with the lockdowns and closures of retail shops across the globe, strongly impacted all consumer device markets, including mobile phones.

“As the uncertainties of the lockdowns and total economic impact linger, vendors are reconsidering their outlook for 2020,” he points out.

Despite the Chinese market recording better-than-expected demand in March as the number of new Covid-19 cases started easing, the rate of recovery in March was mostly due to unsustainable “pent-up” demand.

“The global economic downturn is expected to have an adverse impact on the Chinese economy and consumer sentiment and [will] only allow the market to achieve yearly growth in the fourth quarter,” explains Wong.

During the first quarter period under review, Samsung’s shipment of 58.3-million smartphones enabled it to regain its top position with 21.1% share, despite an 18.9% year-on-year decline.