The fact that Xiaomi surpasses Huawei is a testament to how corona virus can change the smartphone market

According to data from Strategy Analytics, Chinese smartphone supplier Xiaomi surpassed its Chinese rival Huawei to become the world's third largest smartphone vendor by shipments in February 2020.

While Xiaomi shipped 6 million smartphones globally in February, Huawei was ranked behind with only 5.5 million smartphones shipped. Both shipments of Xiaomi and Huawei in February decreased compared to the same period last year, respectively at 30% and 70%.

Xiaomi's smaller decline in shipments shows the brand's strength outside of China, which has been virtually frozen for most of the past month and its impact on global markets.

Meanwhile, Xiaomi's presence in international markets, like in India, seems to have become an important factor in the small decline in smartphone shipments. Currently, Xiaomi has the largest smartphone market share in India for 9 consecutive quarters, while Huawei is not in the top 5 best selling smartphone brands in the country.

According to Xiaomi's earnings report for the third quarter of 2019 (ending September 30, 2019), Xiaomi's revenue outside of China, mainly from India, Indonesia and Western Europe, accounts for 48% of the total. their revenue.

Huawei's efforts to maintain its position in the global market have been met with a cornerstone of the U.S.-China trade war, the cause of the company's loss of access to service applications. Google core, like Gmail, Maps or Search.

This presents a major problem for the company in international markets like Western Europe, where Google is present in the majority of its daily use - 97% of European users use Google search engines. , and 62% use the same Chrome browser.

Other major smartphone brands, such as Samsung and Apple, also face similar declines in shipments when other countries take similar actions to prevent the disease caused by the corona virus. In China and Western Europe, the spread of the virus forced retailers to close stores when authorities demanded people stay indoors.

As the pandemic spread to North America, regional smartphone vendors had their own countermeasures. For Apple and Samsung, for example, these two brands account for 84% of the US smartphone market. To avoid a sudden drop in smartphone shipments, vendors have stepped up their online shopping channel to compensate for the closure of physical stores. Apple has even removed restrictions on how many iPhones customers can buy online.

In addition, smartphone vendors must ensure stable delivery methods when retailers like Amazon start prioritizing shipping needed products, such as groceries or pharmaceuticals. Other non-essential items may take up to a month to ship to customers when purchased through Amazon Prime. This forces smartphone vendors to enter into temporary agreements with carriers to ensure that their devices reach consumers with minimal disruption.