US Importers Sourced 18.2 Million Smartphones in July, Busiest 2020 Month So Far
July smartphone imports to the U.S. were recorded as their highest monthly volume of 2020, but remain on pace to finish the year with nearly 20% fewer shipments compared with 2019, according to Census Bureau data accessed Sept. 13 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. July imports of PC monitors, a surprisingly strong connectivity tool throughout much of COVID-19's telework and remote-learning mandates, cooled off from their torrid performance in the second quarter.
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U.S. importers sourced 18.2 million smartphones from all countries in July under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule’s 8517.12.00 classification, DataWeb said. Unit imports were up 14.8% sequentially from June and up 6.2% from July 2019. That was marked improvement from Q2 when smartphone imports declined 12.4% from the 2019 quarter (see 2008170010). January-July unit smartphone imports were 94.44 million, nearly 19% lower than the same 2019 period. July dollar imports of $4.45 billion were 21.9% higher than in June and were up 13.5% from a year earlier.
The average July smartphone import was valued at $244.68, up 6.3% from June and 6.9% more expensive than in July 2019, DataWeb said. It’s difficult to discern the contribution that 5G handset shipments may have made to bringing smartphones slightly more upmarket in July, since there’s no separate HTS breakout for 5G device imports. Qualcomm recently stood by its forecasts that OEMs will ship between 175 million and 225 million 5G smartphones globally this year (see 2007300013). IDC estimates the U.S. will capture about 12% global share, meaning shipments would reach about 27 million 5G smartphones this year at the high end of Qualcomm’s forecast range.
China was the source of 74.9% of July smartphone imports, DataWeb said. Its 13.63 million units were 18.3% higher sequentially from June and up 8.3% from a year earlier. Its $263.45 average value was 5% more expensive than in June and up 5.4% from July 2019. Vietnam lost a few points of share to China in July. Its 3.52 million handsets were 19.3% of all smartphone imports in the month, down from a 21.5% share in June and 20.6% in July 2019. July Vietnamese shipments were up 3.2% from June and about flat with July 2019.
PC monitor import growth abated in July from triple-digit increases in Q2 (see 2008240011), DataWeb said. U.S. importers sourced 3.79 million HTS 8528.52.000 monitors from all countries in July, 13.7% fewer than in June, and 20.5% fewer than in July 2019. Year-to-date imports of just under 20 million monitors were 19.8% fewer than in January-July 2019. Dollar-value of imports of $519.06 million were 16.1% lower than in June and 23.9% lower than a year earlier. The average PC monitor import in July lost 2.8% in value from June and was 4% cheaper than in July 2019.
China typically is the source of about 95% of PC monitor imports to the U.S., and July was no different, DataWeb said. China shipped 3.58 million desktop monitors here, 14.6% fewer than in June and 21.7% fewer than in July 2019. The average Chinese monitor was valued at $124.87, nearly 4% cheaper than in June, and nearly 5% cheaper than in July 2019. Mexico, Taiwan and Vietnam combined to ship about 148,300 monitors here in July, enough for 4.1% share, up from 3% in June. The $298.96 average value for combined imports from the three countries made it about 2.4 times costlier than the Chinese counterpart.