IDC reports global smartphone shipments total 341.6 million in Q2 2017-- a decline of -1.3% on a Y-o-Y basis, and by -0.8% following a higher-than-expected Q1 2017.

However, despite such a drop in shipments all leading vendors continue seeing positive shipment growth. Samsung and Apple market share remains "relatively" consistent from Q2 2016, while the other 3 vendors making the top 5 (namely Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi) see share growth.

"In my opinion, the biggest change in Q2 2017 is the size of the contraction among the 'Others' outside of the top 5 OEMs," the analyst says. "It's no secret that the smartphone market is a very challenging segment for companies to maintain or grow share, especially as already low average selling prices declined by another -4.3% in 2016. The smaller, more localized vendors will continue to struggle, especially as the leading volume drivers build out their portfolio into new markets and price segments."

Gartner forecasts global shipments of PCs, tablets and smartphones to reach 2.3 billion in 2017-- a -0.3% decline from 2016, with the market expected to return to slight growth in 2018 with a 1.6% shipment increase.

"Overall, the shipment growth of the device market is steady for the first time in many years," the analyst says. "PC shipments are slightly lower while phone shipments are slightly higher-- leading to a slight downward revision in shipments from the previous forecast."

As one might expect, PC shipments remain on the decline, with 2017 dropping by -3%. However such decline is slower than in recent years, thanks to Windows 10 replacement purchasing. The prices of components such as DRAM and SSDs continue to increase, creating headwinds for the global PC market and (to a lesser extent) the smartphone market. Manufacturers are absorbing at least some of the impact of PC component prices, due to fears that a PC price increase will reduce their share of a competitive market.

According to IDC the W. European tablet market sees a "slight" -1.7% Y-o-Y decline in Q1 2017, with shipments reaching 7.1 million units-- performance described as above expectations after many quarters of decline.

Driving the market is the recovery of Android-based consumer tablets, as well as the progress of the device form factor in enterprise. Also leaving a positive impact is detachable/hybrid tablets, with shipments growing by 5.8% Y-o-Y over and 16.6% Y-o-Y in the commercial segment.

In fact, the commercial segment sees 5.4% Y-o-Y tablet shipment growth thanks to Android- and iOS-based devices with keyboards. Enterprises use such device to address the specific needs of users in various sectors. However Windows-based detachables slowed down in Q1 2017 due to growing focus on convertible notebooks by major OEMs, sluggish Windows 10 adoption in large and very large corporations, and the lack of a Surface Pro refresh.

The global tablet market continues to contract in Q1 2017, IDC reports-- shipments are down by 8.5% Y-o-Y to 36.2 million, marking a 10th straight quarter of tablet decline.

The analyst divides the tablet segment in two "very different" categories. The first is detachables, which are packaged with a 1st party keyboard and are actually growing, at least for the most part. The second is slates/traditional tablets, which lack a keyboard and are on "steep" decline following a 2014 shipment peak.

"As far as most are aware, the tablet market was created in 2010 with the launch of the original iPad, despite unsuccessful product attempts by other OEMs in the years leading up to this," IDC says. "The rate at which the tablet market grew from 2010 to 2013 was unlike many other consumer-oriented device markets we've seen before. However, it appears for many reasons consumers became less eager to refresh these devices, or in some instances purchase them at all. We continue to believe the leading driver for this was the increased dependency on smartphones, along with rather minimal technology and form factor progression."