The global smartphone market recovery will be impacted in 2020 as uncertainties around COVID-19 increased over the last month.

According to the latest forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, the worldwide smartphone market is expected to decline 2.3% in 2020 with shipment volume just over 1.3 billion.

The COVID-19 outbreak is expected to stress the short-term scenario with shipments declining 10.6% year over year in the first half of 2020. Global smartphone shipments are expected to return to growth in 2021 driven by accelerated 5G efforts.

IDC has considered optimistic, probable, and pessimistic forecast scenarios driven by the uncertainties around COVID-19. Our current forecasts are aligned with the probable scenario, which ascribes a multi-quarter recovery for manufacturing and logistics given a more gradual return of Chinese workers to factories amidst persisting transportation challenges. China’s demand shock extends several quarters but is mitigated by the end of the year with the aid of government-backed stimuli and subsidies. Demand in surrounding regions will also be briefly suppressed. Global smartphone shipments show a more U-shaped recovery from the second half of the year. However, actual phone shipments could show a different overall shape given the seasonal nature of shipments.

“COVID-19 became yet another reason to extend the current trend of smartphone market contraction, dampening growth in the first half of the year. While China, the largest smartphone market, will take the biggest hit, other major geographies will feel the hit from supply chain disruptions. Component shortages, factory shutdowns, quarantine mandates, logistics, and travel restrictions will create hindrances for smartphone vendors to produce handsets and roll out new devices. The overall scenario is expected to stabilize from the third quarter of the year as the COVID-19 situation hopefully improves and 5G plans pick up the pace globally,” said Sangeetika Srivastava, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers.

With February and March as the time when manufacturers unveil key flagship products and conduct final pre-production tests and debug their products slated to be unveiled in the first half of the year, changes made to product plans for the first half of the year will likely lead to adjustment of product plans for the medium term and even the long term.

“For the epicenter, China, we forecast the domestic market to drop by nearly 40% year over year for first quarter and even with a potential March recovery it will still be difficult to reach last year’s levels,” said Will Wong, research manager with IDC’s Asia/Pacific Client Devices Group. “Buyers will purchase from online channels, which will account for a significantly increased share of phones sold in the first half of 2020 and may represent a permanent shift in buying behaviors.”

The epidemic outbreak will undermine the Chinese economy as a whole and the many SMEs will likely bear the brunt, leading to tightened wallets of consumers.

At the same time, the SMEs in the phone industry, especially retail channel partners, will see the biggest effect and phone vendors that can effectively help their retail channel and other partners recover and reconsolidate after the end of the epidemic will secure more opportunities in the long term.

A new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Smart Cities Spending Guide shows global spending on smart cities initiatives will total nearly $124 billion this year, an increase of 18.9% over 2019.

The top 100 cities investing in smart initiatives in 2019 represented around 29% of global spending, and while growth will be sustained among the top spenders in the short term, the market is quite dispersed across midsize and small cities investing in relatively small projects.

“This new release of IDC’s Worldwide Smart Cities Spending Guide brings further expansion of our forecasts into smart ecosystems with the addition of smart ports alongside smart stadiums and campus,” said Serena Da Rold, program manager in IDC’s Customer Insights & Analysis group.

“The Spending Guide also provides spending data for more than 200 cities and shows that fewer than 80 cities are investing over $100 million per year. At the same time, around 70% of the opportunity lies within cities that are spending $1 million or less per year. There is a great opportunity for providers of smart city solutions who are able to leverage the experience gained from larger projects to offer affordable smart initiatives for small and medium sized cities.”

In 2019, use cases related to resilient energy and infrastructure represented over one third of the opportunity, driven mainly by smart grids. Data-driven public safety and intelligent transportation represented around 18% and 14% of overall spending respectively.

Looking at the largest use cases, smart grids (electricity and gas combined) still attract the largest share of investments, although their relative importance will decrease over time as the market matures and other use cases become mainstream.

Fixed visual surveillance, advanced public transportation, intelligent traffic management, and connected back office follow, and these five use cases together currently represent over half of the opportunity. The use cases that will see the fastest spending growth over the five-year forecast are vehicle-to-everything (V2X) connectivity, digital twin, and officer wearables.

Singapore will remain the top investor in smart cities initiatives. Tokyo will be the second largest spender in 2020, driven by investments for the Summer Olympics, followed by New York City and London. These four cities will each see smart city spending of more than $1 billion in 2020.

On a regional basis, the United States, Western Europe, and China will account for more than 70% of global smart cities spending throughout the forecast. Latin America and Japan will experience the fastest growth in smart cities spending in 2020.

Prof. Umar Danbatta

Executive Vice Chairman/CEO

Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)

With consumers’ interest and how they could get better quality of services as its focal point, Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, says “we will abide by all the tenets of consumer rights in our day to day activities at the NCC.”

The EVC’s statement underpins activities of the regulatory agency which has manifest oversight functions over the various network operators in Nigeria.

As Nigeria joins the rest of the global community to mark the World Consumer’s Right Day on March 15, 2020, the EVC said the NCC had put in place a series of initiatives to always cushion and protect the interest of the consumers.

The theme for this year’s event is ‘The Sustainable Consumer’.

For instance, it has over the years hosted the flagship Telecom Consumer Parliament (TCP) where consumer issues are discussed extensively in a high profile session where the regulator, operators and consumers interact and answers got in the process.

Eighty-eight of such parliaments have been held so far in the major cities across Nigeria.

Besides this, no fewer than 110 Consumer Outreach Programmes (COPs) have been held. The event holds monthly in urban centres in the country.

Consumer Town Hall Meetings (CTM) which exclusively hold in rural communities have been well received across the land. So far, 53 of such events have taken place.

There have also been Elite Enlightenment Campaigns targeted at professional organisations during their yearly conferences.

This is done to carry along the high profile professionals who may not have enough time to participate in the TCP, COP and CTMs which hold regularly.

According to a press release signed by Dr. Henry Nkemadu, Director, Public Affairs at NCC, there are campaigns too to empower the Nigerian Youth through information and awareness creation regarding their rights and obligations within the Nigerian telecom industry as well as apprising them about the consumer protection initiatives of the Commission.

“We participate in trade fairs where we engage the consumer on one-on-one basis”.

According to the EVC, the Commission has developed and produced Consumer Education materials on major telecom issues for distribution. The developed factsheets are translated into the three major languages (Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba) including Pidgin. Such materials cover the DND Campaign, SIM Registration and Replacement, role of NCC in consumer protection among others.

The Commission has in place different channels for lodging Consumer Complaints.

These include:

The NCC 622 Toll Free number for escalating unresolved complaints and for seeking redress is working. The centre is open 8am 0 8pm Mondays to Saturdays. There has been consistent campaign on the 622 NCC Toll Free Line.

• Web Portal – The web portal is an alternative online channel for lodging complaints and making enquiries. The portal is available 24 hours and can be accessed via ncc.gov.ng/consumer
• Management of twitter account (@consumersncc) for disseminating information to consumers. The CAB Twitter account (@Consumersncc) is updated with current topical issues of interest to consumers and it currently has 10,700 followers (Consumers).
• Consistent campaign on DND has attracted 22,487,849 subscribers on DND services as at December 2019.
• Regular monitoring of service providers helplines to ensure that the threshold set by the Commission is met 1.e number of rings before connecting to Interactive Voice Response (IVR), connection of calls to live agents, percentage of failed attempts to customer care helplines etc.
• Review of the Complaint Categories and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) on Complaint Management in view of recent technological advancements.
• Co-ordination of Consumer Protection Special Intervention Initiatives such as:

1. a.      Strategic Bi-Annual Meeting with Senior Executive Directors of Telcos on Complaint Management.
2. Constitution of a Multi-Sectorial Working Group on E-Fraud
3. Development of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with relevant Stakeholders on E-Fraud.

• Periodic visits to Service Providers call centres to monitor real time handling of consumer complaints on quality of service and assurance, among others.