Global sales of smartphones to end users declined 1.7 percent in the second quarter of 2019, totalling 368 million units. However, demand for high-end smartphones has slowed at a greater rate than demand for midrange and low-end smartphones.
These are some of the findings of Market Share: PCs, Ultramobiles and Mobile Phones, All Countries, 2Q19 Update, a report recently published by research and advisory company Gartner, Inc.
The report says that among the top five global smartphone vendors, Huawei and Samsung exhibited the strongest annual sales increases in the second quarter of 2019, at 16.5 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.
Among the top five countries in smartphones sales China was top with 101 million smartphone sales in the second quarter of 2019, up 0.5 percent year over year. However, the report points out that, with more 5G smartphone models available in the second quarter, vendors in China had to clear out inventory of 4G high-end smartphone models. Brazil was the only other country in the top five to exhibit growth (1.3 percent year over year), achieving 10.8 million smartphone sales in the same period, a possible indicator of economic recovery, the report suggests.
India sold a total of 35.7 million smartphones, achieving market share of 9.7 percent in the second quarter of 2019. These sales represented a 2.3 percent decline year over year, however, mainly due to slowing consumer upgrades from feature phones to smartphones.
Global smartphone sales will remain weak for the rest of the year, Gartner suggests. Its analysts expect that sales of worldwide smartphone sales to end users will total 1.5 billion units in 2019.
The report is available now for purchase at gartner.com.
