After growing steadily for years and years, global smartphone shipments began declining towards the end of 2017, continuing their free fall throughout 2018, as well as the first half of 2019. While the year-on-year drop reported in Q2 was not as bad as some of the industry’s previous results, Gartner analysts don’t expect the market to fully recover anytime soon due to sluggish 5G rollouts, lengthening replacement cycles, and Huawei’s uncertain situation in the Western Hemisphere.
