China smartphone shipments fall for sixth straight quarter - IDC

By Che Pan and ‌Farah Master

Beijing, ​Oct ​13 (Reuters) - 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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