The world around us has changed since the COVID-19 outbreak that started in early 2020. Lockdowns have been imposed in several countries, social distancing is being followed in public places and many other changes that we can notice. COVID-19 has also changed the way we commute and travel, with public transport and shared mobility taking a big hit. As a result, mobility looks challenging in the short term. But how does the future of mobility look after COVID-19?
Besides the pandemic, we also have the world economic crisis that has impacted businesses and consumers across the globe. Considering some people will avoid public transport for a while, there is an increasing need for a personal vehicle. But has that improved the car sales? The pandemic has also forced businesses to go digital, so what are dealers and automakers doing to push sales? We answer these questions and more in our new podcast.
In the latest episode of ‘The Counterpoint Podcast’, host Peter Richardson and senior research analyst Aman Madhok discuss the future of mobility after the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion covers topics including emerging mobility options such as e-bikes, e-scooters and electric vehicles. We have also touched upon the types of investments and partnerships that are happening in the industry, and how they will benefit the future of world mobility.
You can also follow our detailed, weekly update on coronavirus’ impact on the global automotive industry here.
The Q2 2020 was probably one of the worst quarters for smartphone makers in years. As the COVID-19 outbreak started, the Indian government imposed a strict lockdown starting March 25. As a result, smartphone production and sales came to a standstill. April was the worst month with all smartphone brands registering zero sales. According to Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service, India’s smartphone shipments declined 51% YoY to just over 18 million units in Q2 2020. Though, as lockdown restrictions started to ease, pent-up demand pushed the India smartphone user base to half a billion.
There were a few surprises too. Despite negative consumer sentiments towards Chinese brands and supply constraints, Xiaomi continued to lead the Indian smartphone market. Samsung was the second-largest smartphone maker and was able to recover faster, to nearly pre-COVID levels. OnePlus regained the top position in the premium smartphone segment with the new OnePlus 8 launch, whereas Apple remained the leading smartphone brand in the ultra-premium segment.
In the latest episode of ‘The Counterpoint Podcast’, host Peter Richardson is joined by research analyst Shilpi Jain to talk about how the India smartphone market performed in Q2 2020. The discussion touches upon various topics from the supply and demand side, effects of India-China border clash on consumer sentiments, and more.
Online music streaming entered a golden era in 2019, with paid subscriptions crossing 350 million users. Moving to 2020, the year started with a global pandemic where the COVID-19 virus outbreak was seen in several countries. As a result, lockdowns were imposed in most countries, and that turned out to be a silver lining to accelerate the growth of the music streaming market. Global subscriptions hit 394 million in Q1 2020, with podcasts continuing to drive growth.
Podcasts have seen big growth as even individual content creators are trying to cater to this segment of the audience. In the current challenging environment due to the coronavirus, health-, wellness- and meditation-related podcasts have grown. Other genres include personal finance and entertainment. The lockdowns have even caused a shift in listening patterns. Earlier, people would listen to podcasts when commuting. Now, as people are spending more time at home, listening has increased on devices like smart TVs, smart speakers, and more.
To attract more customers, music streaming platforms like Spotify have been bringing promotional offers in key markets like India. The company is offering a yearly subscription plan for just INR 699 (around $9). Apple Music, on the other hand, has expanded to 52 new countries, offering free subscriptions for six months. In terms of revenue share, Spotify leads the pack, followed by Apple Music and Amazon Music.
In the latest episode of ‘The Counterpoint Podcast’, host Maurice Klaehne and research analyst Abhilash Kumar discuss the growth of the music streaming market in Q1 2020. We also deep-dive to understand factors that are driving the growth of podcasts and touch upon the revenue share of the music streaming platform.
Our detailed report on the Global Online Music Streaming Market in Q1 2020 can be found here.
We are living in an interesting time where 5G is finally making inroads in the mature markets like the US, the UK, China, and South Korea, among others. But more interestingly, while these markets are transitioning from 4G to 5G, a lot of emerging markets are stuck on 2G. Even markets like India, which is now the second-biggest smartphone market in the world, has 4G connectivity, but 2G and 3G feature phones are still relevant.
The challenge for telecom operators here is to convince these 2G/3G feature phone users to upgrade to a 4G enabled smartphone. But given the budget constrains of these users, operators and handset vendors need to develop low-cost devices that connect the unconnected to the internet. It also opens up opportunities to bring smart feature phones that support apps like WhatsApp, YouTube, digital payments like mPesa, and more.
In the latest episode, “The Counterpoint Podcast” host Maurice Klaehne and associate director Tarun Pathak discuss the feature phone market which has a sizeable chunk of share. The discussion focuses on different topics like opportunities for both handset vendors and network operators. Even a popular feature phone chipset maker like Unisoc can have a bigger role from the 5G NR IoT perspective.
Detailed whitepaper highlighting Cellular Technology Transitions and Potential for SoC Players can be found here.
Open Radio Access Networks or Open RAN is slowly gaining momentum in the telecom industry. It promises to be an alternative way of building networks with greater interoperability. Currently, the Radio Access Networks (RAN) market is dominated by Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei, with players such as Samsung growing. And, the technology used is proprietary where software and hardware components are tightly coupled creating a vendor lock-in for telcos.
With some of the key countries blocking Huawei and ZTE from building telco infrastructure, there is an opportunity for existing and new players to capture the big gap left. In such scenarios, operators looking to replace the Chinese equipment with equally cost-effective solutions open up the opportunity for Open RAN players. As Open RAN promises to have vendor diversity due to open interfaces it offers freedom for telcos choosing processors from one vendor, radios from other suppliers and software from a third vendor. This will allow for cost savings, network sharing, and eliminate the vendor lock-in driving up the competition. Further, as operators across the globe have begun deploying 5G networks, Open RAN can be an alternative for many greenfield and existing telcos to have more freedom to deploy an open, scalable and cost-effective network. However, while promising with ample opportunities for Open RAN community, there are multiple challenges which the ecosystem needs to collectively to allow Open RAN to go mainstream.
In the latest episode of “The Counterpoint Podcast”, host Peter Richardson is joined by research directors Gareth Owen and Neil Shah deep dive on the Open RAN discussing our expansive research on this topic. The discussion focuses on understanding the Open RAN technology and how it could emerge as the next big trend in telecom infrastructure as 5G deployments speed up. We have also touched upon the key stakeholders involved, current deployment status, opportunities and challenges faced by mobile network operators if they go Open RAN route.
Read our detailed analysis in a series of reports – The Race To Open RAN Will Be A Marathon, Not A Sprint:
It’s been a little over six months since the COVID-19 outbreak started, and a lot of things have changed. To control the spread of the coronavirus, lockdowns have been imposed in several countries like the US, UK, India, and more. The lockdown may have helped in slowing down the virus spread, but it has severely impacted economic activities across the globe. At Counterpoint, we recently conducted our Consumer Lens Study to understand the changing consumer intention and attitudes during the pandemic.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, a lot of people have lost jobs across different countries. This has affected their future income uncertainty. As a result, consumer buying behavior will strictly be limited to only the essentials. This also means there could be a reduction in their budget. Our Consumer Lens Study aimed to find out if consumers intent to cut their budget for the next smartphone purchase. Also, with social distancing norms in place, we wanted to find out if consumers will be looking for ‘low touch’ sales channels. For companies in the smartphone value chain, our latest podcast episode will help in understanding the consumer demand dynamics and calibrate strategies accordingly in these testing times.
In the latest episode, “The Counterpoint Podcast” host Peter Richardson discusses the impact of COVID-19 on the consumer spending pattern with senior analyst Pavel Naiya and associate Arushi Chawla. In the podcast episode, Arushi talks about smartphone markets in which we conducted the study and the key findings. Pavel, on the other hand, sheds light on consumer sentiments over buying smartphones from Chinese companies. He also talks about how smartphone makers are coping up with the demand when consumers cannot go to the store and buy smartphones.
As more and more devices are being connected to the cloud via internet, IoT is becoming more pervasive. These devices help in real-time monitoring, data collection, analyzing and then taking the required action. At Counterpoint Research, we recently completed the latest in-depth analysis using proprietary CORE (COmpetitive Rankings & Evaluation) framework to evaluate the leading 20 IoT platform players. They were evaluated based on over 35 capabilities and parameters highlighting completeness, comprehensiveness, and competitiveness.
In most scenarios, sending data to cloud, waiting to process and then taking the required action is not feasible. Due to this edge computing is becoming important. This is also a reason why cloud-first leaders such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM Watson, Cloudera and others are extending their IoT platform capabilities from cloud to edge.
Exhibit 2: Counterpoint CORE – Leading IoT Platform by Completeness i.e. End-to-End Capabilities
But as the IoT ecosystem continues to expand, and move from cloud to edge, security cannot be neglected. This is especially true for devices that gather and store your personal data. In the previous episode of “The Counterpoint Podcast”, we discussed the Future of IoT Security. In the latest episode, host Peter Richardson and consultant Falguni Shah discuss the IoT platform landscape and how the space is shaping up. Topics covered in the discussion include the leading IoT platform companies, level of automation they offer, competitiveness and more.
Detailed report with CORE Evaluation and Analysis of the world’s Leading 20 IoT platforms research can be found here. You can also read our report on overall IoT platform landscape and leading edge-focused IoT platforms here.
The Korean smartphone market is dominated by three major players – Samsung, Apple and LG. Out of the three, Samsung has a majority market share of close to 60%, whereas Apple and LG hover close to 20%. Since 2016, except 2017 (due to Galaxy Note 7 fiasco), the Galaxy S and Note series sales have been more than other devices during the first quarter period. But that changed in Q1 2020, with an “affordable premium” Galaxy A90 5G emerging as the best-seller in Korea.
Source: Counterpoint Model Sales Tracker
A non-ultra-premium smartphone taking a top spot is a significant event that signals changing consumer needs. The COVID-19 impact could be one of the reasons why we are seeing this shift. The “affordable premium” smartphones bring top-of-the-line hardware along with flagship features without creating a hole in your pocket. The Q1 2020 best-seller in Korea, the Galaxy A90 5G, comes equipped with Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 855 SoC, triple cameras and next-gen 5G connectivity with an ASP of $453.
Source: Counterpoint Model Sales Tracker
In the latest episode, “The Counterpoint Podcast” host Peter Richardson and research analyst Minsoo Kang discuss the rise in popularity of “affordable premium” smartphones in the Korean market. The discussion also touches upon other launches such as the Apple iPhone SE, LG Velvet, and a look at overall best-selling phones in Korea, and more.
The COVID-19 outbreak in the US resulted in store closures due to the lockdown and stay-at-home orders. As a result, the US smartphone market was down 21% YoY in Q1 2020. Moving into Q2 2020, the economic downturn and delay in tax refunds slowed down the smartphone sales even further. Nearly 40 million workers in the US applied for unemployment over the past few months. This is a strong base that buys prepaid devices, and a lot of them pay cash as they do not have credit cards.
As 80% of the stores were closed, we saw online smartphone sales grow from 13% to 33% in April 2020. That is a good growth after many quarters. But, is it just a temporary boost because offline stores were closed or are we are seeing a longer-term shift in consumer buying patterns?
In the latest episode, “The Counterpoint Podcast” host Peter Richardson and Research Director Jeff Fieldhack discuss the growth of online smartphone sales in the US. The discussion also touches upon how carriers and national retailers are addressing the needs of their customers. While the US market contracted in Q1 and Q2 2020, Jeff also shared his expectations about Q3 and Q4 when Apple is expected to launch 5G smartphones.
Detailed data with monthly split according to country, price band, device type and sales channels can be found here. You can also visit our blog to read about the COVID-19 supply and demand impact on the US market.
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