The worldwide smartphone market failed to sustain its growth momentum in the fourth quarter, causing shipments for the full year of 2019 to decline by 2,2%compared to 2018, according to preliminary research results from IHS Markit.
Shipments totaled 1,38-billion units in 2019, down from 1,41-billion in 2018. This decrease was slightly less than the 2,4% decline from 2017 to 2018, as reported by the IHS Markit Technology Smartphone Intelligence Service – Premium.
In the fourth quarter, shipments slipped to 359,2-million units, down 1,5% from 364,8-million units in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Just as in 2018, Samsung ended 2019 as the leader in smartphone shipments. The South Korean company shipped 294,8-million units in 2019, up 1,7% from 289,9-million in 2018.
“Samsung’s focus on the mid-range paid dividends in 2019, helping the company to fend off global competition from Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo,” says Gerrit Schneemann, senior analyst, smartphones, at IHS Markit Technology.
Huawei finished 2019 second to Samsung. For the year, Huawei recorded growth of 16,7% compared to 2018–reaching 240,6-million units in 2019, up from 206,1-million in 2018.
“Despite achieving double-digit growth for the year, Huawei in the fourth quarter started to feel the impact of continued headwinds from US government trade actions,” says Jusy Hong, smartphone research and analysis director at IHS Markit Technology. “After three quarters of significant growth in 2019, Huawei’s shipments declined by 7,4% year-over-year in the fourth quarter.”
Until the fourth quarter, Huawei had weathered the uncertainties of a US technology ban well, shipping almost 60-million units in the first quarter, followed by 59-million in the second quarter and 66,8-million in the third. While the US government has granted licenses to some US businesses to continue selling products to Huawei, Google is not one of them so far.
“Huawei now is launching its latest flagship smartphones internationally,” says Anna Ahrens, senior analyst at IHS Markit Technology. “However, in markets like Western Europe, the lack of Google services will make Huawei phones a hard sell for consumers, especially considering that the company’s Mate series is positioned squarely in the premium price segment.”
Aside from Samsung and Huawei, most of the other major smartphone OEMs ended the year with shipments down compared to 2018.
