A study by Counterpoint Technology Market Research shows that the European smartphone market has experienced a severe downturn in the past year. Another notable, but quite expected event in 2020 was a sharp decline in the share of Huawei.
In the last quarter of last year, about 52.8 million smartphones were sold in Europe. This is 15% less than in the fourth quarter of 2019, when shipments amounted to 61.9 million units. The reason for this sharp decline was the pandemic, which hit retail channels hard.
In 2020, a total of 185.9 million smartphones were shipped to the European market. The drop compared to 2019, when shipments amounted to 216.1 million units, was 14%.
At the end of the year, Samsung became the sales leader with a share of 32%, but the demand for smartphones from this company in single terms decreased by 12%. Apple is in second place with 22% of the industry, with demand for the iPhone down 1% year on year.
At the same time, shipments of smartphones from Xiaomi, which closes the top three, almost doubled by 90%. This company occupied 14% of the European market in 2020.
In fourth place is Huawei, whose shipments collapsed by 43%: the company’s share was only 12%. Next comes OPPO with 4% of the market: this company was able to increase shipments by 82%.