These data refer to the first quarter of that year, a period in which the virus began to spread in Asia and Europe, in countries such as France, Spain and Italy, before reaching massively the American continent.
But Apple was not the only company to suffer from this drop in profits. According to information released by Gartner – an American consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut – four of the top five cell phone manufacturers in the world, which make up the top five of the best-selling handsets globally, have experienced a drop in profits in that period.
The only company that did not fall on that list was Xiaomi. The Chinese, despite having a small profit of 1.4%, managed to narrowly escape from being among the manufacturers that had losses in the first three months of the year.
The South Korean Samsung – which controversially saw one of its smartphones, the Galaxy A51, as the best-selling Android device in the period – did not have the same “luck”. The giant, which is the leader of the ranking, was one of the most affected by the crisis with a 22.7% drop in sales in the quarter. According to Gartner, the company’s situation could be even worse, was it not for its presence, albeit limited, in Chinese territory and the location of its factories outside the country.
Even worse were Huawei’s numbers. With a total of 42.5 million units sold, the Chinese had a 27.3% drop in dispatched cell phones. The situation may be even worse for the company, in terms of recovery in the coming months, due to the commercial war that the company has been fighting with the US government since last year.
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Apple, on the other hand, would have reached historic positive levels in the period, according to a hypothetical analysis by Annette Zimmermann, vice president of research at Gartner, who considered this possibility if the virus had not spread worldwide.
Source: techspot