What happened? The slowing demand for consumer electronic products has led to yet another quarter of declines for smartphones, Chromebooks and tablets. IDC's latest data shows that worldwide smartphone shipments declined 9.7 percent on an annual basis in the third quarter, to 301.9 millions units. The research firm claims that this is the biggest ever third quarter decline and the fifth consecutive quarter for the mobile industry.

Samsung was the leader with 64 million phones shipped in the third-quarter, a drop of 7.8 percent compared to the same period last year. Apple was second, with 51.9 millions iPhones sold google chromebook. This represents an increase of 1.6% year-over-year. Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo completed the top five. However, all three saw a decline in volume year over year. Apple was the only top-five company to see growth from year to year.

Nabila Popal , IDC's research director, said that the majority of declines were in emerging markets. Inflation and rising costs impacted consumers who had lower disposable incomes. IDC expects that the market will recover in 2023, but it now anticipates that the shipment declines for the rest of 2022 will be steeper and the recovery to be softer next year.

The tablet and Chromebook market was a story similar.

In the third quarter, tablet shipments fell 8.8 percent on an annual basis to 38.6 millions units. This was also the fifth consecutive quarter of declines in the smartphone market. Apple was the leading provider with 14.5 millions iPads shipped worldwide in the third quarter. This represents a 1.1 percent decline compared to 2021. Samsung was in second place, with 7.1 millions units shipped. Amazon followed at 4.3 Million Fire tablet units.

Chromebook shipments fell by a staggering 34.4 percent in the third-quarter, to a total of 4.3 million units. Acer was the leading Chromebook manufacturer for Q3, with 1 million units shipped. This was 23.8 percent less than the previous year. Dell, HP Lenovo and Samsung filled the rest of those spots, all shipping less than one million units, and experiencing a significant decline in sales year-over-year.

IDC noted that the Chromebook and tablet markets are now in a demand-challenged market, where consumer and educational spending have been slowed down primarily because of economic uncertainty.