China smartphone shipments fall for sixth straight quarter - IDC

Beijing, Oct 13 — China's third-quarter smartphone ​shipments fell 15.4% from a year earlier to 57.9 million units, research firm IDC said ‌on Tuesday.

Huawei was the only major vendor to post double-digit growth.

The ⁠firm shipped 12.2 million ​units and led the ⁠market with a 21% share, IDC data showed. ‌Apple was second ‌with 17.8%, though its shipments in China fell ⁠4.3%.

Chinese rivals Oppo, Vivo ⁠and Xiaomi saw shipment declines of 17.6%, 24.9% and 20.4%, respectively.

The decline comes amid weak consumer spending in China. Over the past few quarters, phone makers have also been hit by ‌rising prices for memory chips and ​other components.

Vendors have been passing higher costs on to consumers, pushing up retail prices even as shipments shrink, said Arthur Guo, a senior analyst at IDC.

IDC said Huawei's broad product lineup and relatively modest price increases helped it extend ​its run this year. Apple's new iPhones sold better ‌than expected, but ‌having ⁠fewer models this year weighed on its shipments.

Honor was the only leading brand whose shipments grew from the previous quarter, which IDC said suggested a ‌possible rebound.

(Reporting by Pan ​Che and Liz Lee ‌in Beijing; Writing ⁠by Farah ​Master in Hong Kong; Editing by Tom Hogue and ​Thomas Derpinghaus)

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