The global smartphone market is unlikely to recover from the global health crisis in the second quarter of 2020.
Global smartphone shipments are expected to contract 15 percent year-on-year in 2020 to 1.15 billion units, as major brands such as Samsung Electronics, Huawei, and Apple have lowered their shipping targets for the year after the coronavirus pandemic, according to DigiTimes.
Apple is scheduled to announce its second-quarter fiscal 2020 earnings on April 30. In February, Apple lowered its quarterly forecast as the epidemic spread across the board, saying that limited iPhone supply and lower-than-expected Chinese demand would put downward pressure on the company's revenue.
Prior to the outbreak, Apple was expecting second-quarter revenue of between $63 billion and $67 billion and a gross margin of between 38% and 39%. The company now expects that its revenue may fall short of the minimum expected level.
Foxconn, Apple's main iPhone assembler, also lowered its 2020 revenue expectations after China imposed strict quarantine.
In addition, the report says that Apple has cut orders for the iPhone 11 in the second and third quarters of this year due to the crisis.
Previously, Huawei's consumer business CEO Richard Yu said in an interview after the P40 launch that in such a bad epidemic situation, it's reasonable to be slipping, but Huawei fought not to slip.
"The market is down 60, 70 percent, how can it be alone. We fight not to slide. Now that the entire Chinese market is down across the board, we're the only one with high growth." He said.
