EMEA smartphone market continues to shine despite new lockdowns, says IDC

28 May 2021

LONDON, May 28, 2021 — The EMEA smartphone market grew to a first-quarter record of 93.060 million units, according to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker from International Data Corporation (IDC). This was a 20.9% increase over 1Q20, while the value increase, at $31.676 billion, was 29.0% above that in the previous year.

In Europe, the value increase over the same quarter last year was almost a third, at $23.196 billion.

"It's no surprise that the first quarter was well up on 1Q20," said Marta Pinto, research manager at IDC EMEA, "as initial coronavirus lockdowns had already begun then, but the new figures are also well over those for 1Q19, before the crisis."

Neither renewed lockdowns in some countries nor an anticipated shortage of integrated circuits slowed the market down, said Simon Baker, program director at IDC EMEA.

"IDC received reports of major distributors and clients in larger countries being given priority in deliveries, and of a few brands being hit by component shortages, but overall vendors were able to meet the high demand," he said.

Samsung had a very strong quarter, and captured nearly two-fifths of the European smartphone market — its largest quarterly share for six years. Apple, in second place in Europe, maintained momentum after the launch quarter success of the new iPhone 12 lineup. Xiaomi was a clear winner in the quarter — it was in third position in Europe and took almost a fifth of the market, its best-ever performance.

Together, the three vendors accounted for nearly four-fifths of the European smartphone market.

The rest of the European market was widely split. Huawei continued to slump and fell to just 2.6%, with Honor, formerly its second brand and now a separate company, at 0.7%. OPPO and vivo volumes remained relatively modest.

In Africa and the Middle East, Transsion, through its main brands Tecno, Infinix, and itel, continues to grow. It ranked third in the overall EMEA smartphone list for the quarter, despite having only a limited presence in Europe to date.

Baker said there is still some nervousness over integrated circuit supply to the phone industry later in the year. With such a strong showing to the opening quarter of the year, however, IDC is expecting a reversal this year of the slow year-on-year decline in smartphone sales that we have seen in Europe since 2015.