Global smartphone shipments suffered their worst quarterly drop on record in a clear sign of cooling consumer demand that signals more pain for manufacturing hubs like South Korea and Vietnam.

Shipments declined 18.3 percent in the December quarter compared to a year earlier, to a little over 300 million units, Needham, a Massachusetts-based IDC said. For the year, shipments fell 11.3 percent and marked the lowest total for a decade, the researchers said.

Turmoil in Apple’s main Chinese production base may have disrupted shipments in the quarter. Protests over COVID restrictions and living conditions at the Zhengzhou complex that makes the majority of the world’s iPhones derailed production for weeks, culminating in violent protests in December. (Bloomberg)