The smartphone market suffered terribly in the first quarter of 2020 in the hands of COVID-19 and the quarter of April-June was even worse. Despite this, Apple has shipped a record number of iPhones in the United States.
The iPhone 11 and iPhone SE were very popular
Market data collected by Canalys shows that suppliers of smartphones shipped 31.9 million smartphones in the United States in the second quarter. That number is 5% year-on-year down from the 33.4 million devices shipped in Q2 2019.
Apple remained the number one smartphone maker in the US for another quarter, accounting for nearly half of the entire market. Specifically, it shipped 15 million iPhone units and reached a market share of 47.1%.
That represents a new home record for iPhone shipments for the Tim Cook-led company, which is particularly impressive given the circumstances. It also equates to a 10% boost over the 13.4 million iPhones sold twelve months earlier.
The success, according to
Canalys, was down to three factors. First, the iPhone 11 was received much more positively than its predecessor, the iPhone XR, which led to a 15% increase in US shipments.
Second, as Apple itself confirmed in its recent recent earnings announcement, the $ SE 399 iPhone SE has proven extremely popular among existing customers using older iPhones and even some Android customers. This also resulted in a sales increase.
Finally, the economic impact caused by COVID-19 in the US has led to a shift in buying habits. The average price of smartphones dropped 10% year-on-year to $ 503, which further helped support the launch of the iPhone SE (2020).
Samsung remained stable, but the Galaxy S20 did not help
Next in second place was Samsung with shipments of 7.4 million units and an impressive share of 23.2% of the US smartphone market. The total turnover of the company remains unchanged from a year ago and its share has grown by 0.9% but not everything is positive.
The louder reception of the Galaxy S20 5G series due to its higher prices combined with the COVID-19 impact led to a massive drop in flagship sales. Samsung shipped 59% fewer Galaxy S20 handsets than Galaxy S10 models.
Cheaper Galaxy devices retain Samsung sales
It therefore relied heavily on cheaper devices such as the low-end Galaxy A10e and Galaxy A20 to support shipping numbers in the quarter. That’s great for market share but bad for the finish line, something that Samsung confirmed in its Q2 revenue report.
LG and Motorola followed with no sign of Google or OnePlus
The top three smartphone manufacturers outperformed the LG. The South Korean market shipped 3.5 million devices and accounted for 11% of the market down, down from the 4.3 million and 13% it registered a year earlier.
As
Canalys notes, LG could benefit in the long run from the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, as the Trump administration looks to cut virtually all ties with China by pushing manufacturers abroad with high tariffs on import.
LG Velvet and Motorola Edge +
Speaking of China, local companies Lenovo and TCL have completed the top five.
The former primarily sells smartphones under the Motorola market and shipped 2.2 million devices in Q2 2020, leading to a market share of 6.9%. Those numbers are up from 2 million shipments and 6.1% a year earlier.
TCL, on the other hand, was severely affected by the pandemic. Shipments shrank 43% from 2.3 million in Q2 2019 to 1.3 million in Q2 2020, giving it a market share of only 4%.
The remaining smartphone manufacturers, which include the likes of Google and OnePlus, only accounted for a combined 2.4 million shipments.
