EMEA smartphone shipments total 83.7 million units in Q1 2019, IDC reports-- a -3.3% Y-o-Y drop, confirming recent trends of a slowing market. Revenues face a steeper decline of -10% Y-o-Y, reaching $26780 million.

Feature phone sales total 45.9m, with over 66% being shipments to Africa.

The M. East sees the biggest contraction in smartphone volumes at -18.8% Y-o-Y, together with a drop of around -30% Y-o-Y in value, as recent buoyancy in oil prices has failed to bring more consumer confidence and expenditure. The African market is the fastest growing at 6% Y-o-Y, while European volumes see "little change."

ASPs are down across W. Europe, while the M. East faces a sharp drop. Only CEE has ASPs sustained Y-o-Y, although such average prices remain little more than 50% of W. European prices.

According to Gartner, global smartphone sales are down by -2.7% Y-o-Y to 373 million units in Q1 2019, as slowdown in flagship handset innovation and rising prices continue to extend replacement cyles.

“Demand for premium smartphones remained lower than for basic smartphones, which affected brands such as Samsung and Apple that have significant stakes in high-end smartphones,” the analyst says. “In addition, demand for utility smartphones declined as the rate of upgrading from feature phones to smartphones has slowed, given that 4G feature phones give users great advantages at a lower cost.”

Samsung remains on top of the vendor rankings, even if sales are down by -8.8% Y-o-Y to 71.6m units. The S. Korean giant did see good response for the flagship Galaxy S10 portfolio, but it only started shipping the devices at the end of Q1 2019. The company also refreshed the mid- and entry-tier A and J series, and launched the M series, but aggressive Chinese competition limits the impact of such devices.

The global smartphone market continues to slide in Q1 2019, IDC reports, as shipments are down by -6.6% Y-o-Y to reach 310.8 million units, marking a 6th consecutive quarter of decline.

For overall 2018, shipments dropped by -4.1% compared to 2017, and judging from Q1 2019 the rest of the year will essentially be yet another downer for pretty much all vendors. The only highlight, from a vendor perspective, is Huawei managing to grow volume and share despite market headwinds. In fact, Huawei has managed to grow so much in Q1 2019 it even managed to beat Apple!

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Huawei is laser focused on growing its stature in the world of mobile devices, with smartphones being its lead horse,"  the analyst says. "The overall smartphone market continues to be challenged in almost all areas, yet Huawei was able to grow shipments by 50%, not only signifying a clear number two in terms of market share but also closing the gap on the market leader Samsung. This new ranking of Samsung, Huawei, and Apple is very likely what we'll see when 2019 is all said and done."

According to IDC, Q4 2018 EMEA smartphone shipments total 98.8 million units, a flat result bringing just 0.4% Y-o-Y growth. Revenues, on the other hand, are up by 2.5% Y-o-Y to reach $35.5 billion, with increases across Europe and a drop in MEA.

The quarter sees the rapid increase of Huawei in EMEA-- the Chinese company not only sees impressive 73.7% Y-o-Y shipment growth, but currently holds 21.2% share of the market, beating Apple and inching increasingly closer to leader Samsung. The S. Korean giant holds 28% share of Q4 2018 shipments, even if it sees a -3.8% Y-o-Y drop in unit unit numbers.

"In the EU and EEA, a key market for Huawei, the company came close to overtaking Samsung," IDC remarks. "Eyes in the industry have been on Huawei, to see how much it would grow, but also on Apple, to see how much it might fall after the company's recent profit warning. In this context, Apple had a reasonable quarter, though not as strong as the Q4 2017. Its value share of the EMEA market was down to 41% from 46% a year ago."