Global mobile phone makers suffered declining sales in Q2 2019 as shipment volumes shrank by 2% annually for the quarter. The negative growth marked the 5th straight quarter of declining volume shipments on an annualized basis.
4G LTE, long the engine of growth for handsets shipments, were down for a third straight quarter YoY, even as GPRS/EDGE feature phone shipments grew, driven by demand in emerging markets, particularly in Africa.
5G smartphone shipment volumes are still tiny relative to the overall handset industry; nonetheless they are poised for rapid growth and will become the engine for the mobile device industry for the next decade. While Samsung was the single vendor shipping 5G smartphones in Q1 2019, in Q2’19 it was joined by 4 additional vendors. Nevertheless Samsung claimed the vast majority of 5G smartphone shipment volumes in Q2 2019 and is poised to do so again in the third quarter of this year.
Strategy Analytics’ Device Technologies practice tracks and forecasts 5G smartphone shipments and sales, as well as a host of other technologies vital to the mobile device industry. Clients can access the latest quarterly report, Vendor Share : Global Handset Market by Technology : Q2 2019 which tracks device vendor shipment volumes by air interface technology, including the latest 5G vendor shipments, here.