Hong said Apple dropped to fourth place in global smartphone sales, shipping 35.3 million iPhones in 2Q19 compared to the 36.2 million units shipped by Oppo, 58.7 million units by Huawei, and 75.1 million units by Samsung.
"Apple continues to face challenges in terms of unit shipments -- a trend that is unlikely to be fixed soon," Hong said.
While Apple has been marketing overpriced iPhones, Samsung, Huawei, and Oppo have been quickly building market share, taking some of it away from Apple, by offering reasonably priced smartphones.