back to article Smartphone market's lifeless corpse twitches slightly in first sign of growth for two years

Global shipments of smartphones bucked the market's downward trend in the third quarter of 2019 to increase by a paltry 1 per cent – the first signs of growth in two years. Total shipments were 352.4 million for the quarter, according to analysts at Canalys. Samsung and Huawei topped the charts with respective increases of 11 …

  1. John Savard

    What?

    And here I was told that the market for desktop computers was dead, the market for laptop computers was in-between, and smartphones and tablets were where all the action was! Of course, that might still be true; just because the smartphone market isn't growing, its sales volume could still be higher than for those other computing devices.

    Myself, I buck the trend; I'm doing a Ryzen 9 3900X build at the moment.

  2. Blackjack Silver badge

    Hey, what about 5G?

    People tends to keep their smartphones longer nowadays, my Samsung S3 mini was only replaced this year by a Nokia 1 (Or New Nokia 1 to not confuse it with the extint dumb phone) And the next time I replace a Smartphone will be probably be two years after we get G5 around here.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hey, what about 5G?

      5G is mostly irrelevant for phones. No one will be missing out not having it, least of all in the next couple years while it is barely getting off the ground.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    350,000,000 sales = 'Lifeless Corpse'

    So, nearly 5% of the world's population bought a new phone in the last three months, and the market is a 'lifeless corpse'?

    I think some perspective is needed here...

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: 350,000,000 sales = 'Lifeless Corpse'

      When I saw "smartphone" and "lifeless corpse" in the headline, I thought I was going to read about Blackberry's sales numbers.

      1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
        Pirate

        Re: 350,000,000 sales = 'Lifeless Corpse'

        I feared Windows Phone was stretching its rotted claws from beyond the grave. Dog help us all.

      2. Cartimand

        Re: 350,000,000 sales = 'Lifeless Corpse'

        My 3-year old Blackberry Priv is still giving decent service (albeit held together with Gorilla glue) and I hope it will continue to do so until 5G is properly up and running.

    2. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

      Re: 350,000,000 sales = 'Lifeless Corpse'

      It's always about the growth. Static sales figures don't grow shareholder value, irrespective of sales volume.

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