Smartphone Shipment Declines by 6%, Affects Samsung, Others

• Smartphone Shipment Declines by 6%, Affects Samsung, Others

The global smartphone market has slowed for one straight year with the shipment of Samsung devices suffering a decline, preliminary data from the International Data Corporation has shown.

New data from IDC’s Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker stated that smartphone vendors shipped a total of 355.2 million units during the third quarter of 2018, resulting in a year-over-year decline of six per cent.

According to it, this is the fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline for the global smartphone market.

However, the IDC estimated that the market would return to growth in 2019, adding that it was too early to predict the rate of growth in the coming year.

It noted that Samsung, the largest smartphone vendor in terms of market share, accounting for 20.3 per cent of shipments in the quarter under review, declined 13.4 per cent year-over-year in the quarter.

The report said China, which is the largest country market for smartphone consumption, accounting for roughly one-third of global shipments, was down as well for the sixth consecutive quarter.

Analysts at IDC said Samsung had a challenging quarter with shipments down 13.4 per cent to 72.2 million units shipped.

In addition, it said growing markets like India and Indonesia, where Samsung has held leading positions for many years, were being changed by the rapid growth of Chinese brands like Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo.

“China’s domestic market continues to be challenged as overall consumer spending around smartphones has been down,” the Programme Vice President with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, Ryan Reith, said.

“High penetration levels, mixed with some challenging economic times, have slowed the world’s largest smartphone market. Despite this, we believe this market will begin to recover in 2019 and beyond, driven in the short term by a large, built up refresh cycle across all segments, and in the outer years of the forecast supported by 5G migration.”

“The race at the top of the market continues to be a heated one as Huawei once again slipped past Apple to the second position,” Research Manager, IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Anthony Scarsella, said.