China is again leading the pack in the consumption of consumer tech after the Coronavirus wreaked havoc in the country. Apple shipments have just rebounded from a dismal February.
The Coronavirus pandemic hit China’s economy in more ways than one. It not only paralyzed its manufacturing business, but it also paralyzed the entire world’s supply chain.
The virus has already spread to China’s strongest business partner countries. In fact, they have already closed their borders for shipments from China because of fear of further transmission.
Additionally, local markets in foreign countries are also experiencing the tough blow of the virus. As such, the governments don’t see the need for the shipment from China to even enter their borders except for essential goods.
Apple sees another strong outing in China
After people have been placed under lockdown in several key cities in China, people must have had developed an interest in research on new devices.
Apple was the main beneficiary of the lockdown. Apple merely posted a total of 500,000 units shipped last February. While March saw a turnaround when the company shipped almost 2.5 million units, that’s a rebound of almost four-fold from the previous month.
Unfortunately, this rebound is still down 20% compared to the previous year’s March performance.
To solve the gap between last year’s and this year’s performance, Apple has allowed third-party retailers to slash their prices to entice consumers.
Although this measure might not be enough as the entire world is entering a recession and purchases of consumer tech will be directly affected.
It was reported as well that China has requested that India lift the ban on the importation of new smartphones. They even requested that smartphones be included in essential goods so that they can cross borders.
Chinese smartphone sales down 20% in March; iPhone sales slowly recovering https://t.co/HOt6AJLJCQ by @benlovejoy pic.twitter.com/6zNPhjr6nv
— 9to5Mac.com (@9to5mac) April 14, 2020
Laptops and desktops are experiencing a steep decline
Despite the boost in demand for home work stations, the entire laptop industry still experienced a fall from last year’s January to March sales performance. The temporary demand for laptops is deemed to be artificial.
After the period with which people are forced to migrate to a work from home setup, there is no other channel of sales for laptop companies.
From a total of 58.34 million units sold in the previous year’s first quarter, the entire laptop segment fell to 53.68 million units sold during the same period.
Apple saw the steepest decline in laptop sales. They experienced a total of 21% loss from sales during the first three months of the year. Lenovo, HP, and Dell still lead the pack in terms of laptop sales, although they too experienced a decline in total sales.
Image Courtesy of Unsplash/Bagus Hernawan