Local smartphone sales fell 7.6% year-on-year to 4.7 million units in the third quarter, in line with a crucial drop in the global market, pressured by economic woes and concerns about the next wave of the pandemic, says global research and advisory firm Gartner.
In the same quarter last year, smartphone sales in Thailand booked 5 million units.
At the global level, third-quarter smartphone sales plunged 5.7% year-on-year to 366 million units.
Global smartphone sales remained weaker compared with the same time period in 2019, even with vendors introducing multiple 5G smartphones and governments relaxing measures in the wake of the pandemic, Gartner indicates.
"Consumers are limiting their discretionary spend even as some lockdown conditions have started to improve," said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner.
"Global smartphone sales experienced moderate growth from the second quarter of 2020 to the third quarter. This was due to pent-up demand from previous quarters."
According to the company, economic uncertainties and continued fear of the next wave of the pandemic have taken a toll on non-essential spending throughout this year.
In the third quarter, Samsung retained the pole position at the global level with a 22% market share and sales of 80.8 million units, up 2.2% year-on-year.
The Korean tech giant was trailed by Huawei with a 14.1% market share and sales of 51.8 million units, a vast drop of 21.3% from a year before.
Apple lost the third position it held in the same quarter last year to Xiaomi, which booked 44.4 million units in sales, representing a market share of 12.1%.
This marked the first time Xiaomi reached third place.
Apple slipped to fourth with a 11.1% share and sales of 40.6 million units. Annette Zimmermann, research vice-president at Gartner, said the drop in Apple's sales was attributed to delayed shipments of the iPhone 12 lineup.
Meanwhile, Mr Gupta pointed out positive signs were recorded in a few markets, including parts of Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
"For the first time this year, smartphone sales to end users in three of the top five markets -- India, Indonesia and Brazil -- increased, growing 9.3%, 8.5% and 3.3%, respectively," he said.