IDC became the second research company in as many days to report positive trends in global smartphone shipments, following Strategy Analytics in releasing figures pointing to a bottoming out in declines.

Figures released by IDC placed total smartphone shipments in Q2 at 333.2 million units. While this was down 2.3 per cent year-on-year, the company branded it as “the strongest quarterly performance since Q2 2018”, when the tally of 342 million units was down 1.8 per cent on the comparable 2017 quarter.

Strategy Analytics had expressed similar optimism regarding the recent quarter after reporting shipments declined 3 per cent year-on-year to 341 million units, stating “global smartphone shipments continue to stabilise”.

Anthony Scarsella, research manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, also cited signs of stabilisation, noting a key driver in Q2 “was the availability of vastly improved mid-tier devices” offering premium design and features at lower prices.

Another key area of agreement between the companies was the performance of Huawei. Ryan Reith, programme VP for IDC’s tracker, noted the vendor shrugged off uncertainty to maintain its second-place ranking, with increased shipments year-on-year contributing to a higher market share, albeit still some way behind leader Samsung (see chart, above, click to enlarge).

The research company noted China and the US experienced the highest declines during the quarter, but stated the former is showing signs of recovery given reductions over H1 2019 had been “less severe” than the back half of 2018.

It also stated top vendors appear to be tightening their grip on the global market “while the struggles for local OEMs and old school industry names got worse”.