Smartphone Market Stagnant For Second Straight Quarter

The global smartphone market struggled to grow in the second quarter. Vendors shipped 343.3 million smartphones, a 0.3% increase from 342.4 million in the year-earlier period, according to IDC. That was the second straight quarter of stagnant volumes. Samsung Electronics maintained its lead in the market, nabbing a 22.4% global share, versus 21.3% last year. Apple Inc.'s share declined slightly, to 11.8% from 13.9%, while smaller Asian vendors such as Huawei, OPPO and Vivo continued to steal a larger part of the pie. Anthony Scarsella, a research manager in IDC's mobile phones unit, said most vendors found success with their more affordable models, including Apple with its iPhone SE. Shares of Apple rose 0.4% to $103.34 in Thursday morning trade. Its shares have risen 9% over the last three months, with most of those gains coming this week in the wake of the company's fiscal third-quarter earnings report. The stock has outperformed both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 , which are up 3.3% and 4.2%, respectively.