Smartphone Shipments Fall Short Of IDC Expectations

One day after Apple Inc. surpassed revenue expectations for the fifth straight quarter on strong iPhone growth in China, industry tracker IDC said Wednesday that overall smartphone shipments missed its expectations for the third quarter. Vendors shipped 355.2 million smartphones worldwide in the third quarter, up 6.8% from 332.6 million a year ago. That was slightly below IDC's previous forecast of 363.8 million units, which it blamed on slightly lower-than-expected iPhone shipments and higher-than-expected prices for third-party phones operating on Alphabet Inc.'s Android operating system. Despite the miss, IDC said it was the second-best quarter for smartphone shipments in history. Apple's iPhone shipments grew 22.2% year-over-year to 48 million units, while Samsung's shipments rose 6.1% to 84.5 million. Shipments from China's Huawei jumped 61% to 26.5 million.