iPhone sales fell 8.2% in Q1 due to COVID-19

Apple's iPhone sales fell 8.2% in the first quarter of the year compared to 2019, as the smartphone market as a whole declined by 20%.

According to the latest research from Gartner:

Global sales of smartphones to end users declined 20.2% in the first quarter of 2020, according to Gartner, Inc. The global shelter-in-place combined with the economic uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic led to demand for smartphones collapsing as consumers stopped spending on nonessential products during the first quarter.

All of the top five smartphone vendors recorded a decline in the first quarter of 2020, except for Xiaomi (see Table 1). Strong sales of Redmi devices in international markets and aggressive online channel focus led Xiaomi to achieve better than expected sales. Although Samsung's smartphone sales declined 22.7% in the first quarter of 2020, the company still maintained the No. 1 spot with 18.5% market share.

According to the figures, Apple's 1Q20 market shared was 13.7%. This is actually an increase on last year, where Apple's share was just 7.3%. Despite a fall in iPhone sales, Apple actually managed to take some market share from its competitors. That's because rivals Samsung and Huawei's sales fell by 22.7% and 27.3% respectively.

Gartner notes:

While Apple is not as dependent on China as Huawei, Oppo or Vivo are, it faced supply constraints and store closures which negatively impacted iPhone sales in the first quarter of 2020. However, the impact of the pandemic was less significant than for the other top vendors. Apple's iPhone sales declined 8.2%, totaling 41 million units in the first quarter of 2020.

The figures show that Q1 was an extremely tough period for the smartphone market, but that Apple may have managed to weather the storm slightly better than some of its competitors.