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Research firm IDC estimates global smartphone shipments to fall by nearly 10% in 2020; however, they expect the market to return to growth in 2021, driven by 5G handsets. “While many of the top vendors have reduced their 2020 production plans to align with the market decline, we’ve seen most of the cuts focused on their 4G portfolios. Most channels in developed markets have set the expectation that the portfolios they carry will be dominated by 5G units by the end of 2020, leaving less shelf space for 4G,” said Ryan Reith, Program Vice President with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device...

According to the latest figures from Gartner, global smartphone sales fell by 20.4% to 295 million units in Q2 2020, as the COVID-19 crisis continued to dampen demand. “Travel restrictions, retail closures and more prudent spending on non-essential products during the pandemic led to the second consecutive quarterly decline in smartphone sales this year,” said Anshul Gupta, Senior Research Director at Gartner. China was the only major market to record quarter-on-quarter growth in demand, though sales were still down year-on-year. Samsung, which is still the top smartphone vendor, recorded the biggest drop in sales, falling by 27.1% year-on-year to 54.8...

Almost two thirds of Australian consumers intend to do more of their shopping online than before the coronavirus outbreak, according to research from software comparison platform Capterra. The new research, that examined the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on Australian shopping habits, showed that 62 per cent of consumers will seek to make purchases online, despite the fact that 31 per cent of respondents reported having already fallen victim to internet shopping scams. A full 90 per cent of survey respondents engaged in e-commerce purchases at least once this year, while 56 per cent said that they would quit an...

A new study involving Fitbit smartwatches is investigating whether wearables can detect, track, and trace COVID-19 and similar infectious diseases. Fitbit is working with the Scripps Research Translational Institute and Stamford Medicine to support research into the role of wearables in helping contain the spread of viral outbreaks, including donating devices to at-risk communities such as frontline health workers. Scripps has recently launched an app called DETECT for wearables that aims to track customers’ wearable health data to better detect viral diseases. According to Dr Eric Topol, Director and Founder, previous research has been promising. “From our previously published work, we know...

Market research firms Strategy Analytics and Canalys both expect the boom in the global tablet market to stay, as tablets offer a lower price point for consumers that are working and learning remotely in a pandemic and post-pandemic world. “Tablets enjoyed a renaissance in Q2 2020 because the devices tick so many boxes for remote work and education use,” said Ishan Dutt, Analyst at Canalys. “The ability to collaborate virtually as well as view and interact with digital content has become paramount, especially in the education space… Tablets help overcome this problem by allowing each family member to have their...