The smartphone market has been hit by several factors this year – recession and consequent decline in consumer confidence, and ongoing supply chain disruption and component shortages. The latest forecasts from research firm IDC predict that the situation will not improve very much until the second half of next year. “We believe the global smartphone market will remain challenged through the first half of 2023, with hopes that recovery will improve around the middle of next year and growth across most regions in the second half,” said IDC’s head of consumer device tracking, Ryan Reith. IDC has lowered its smartphone sales forecast for 2022 and 2023 again and now believes shipments will decline by 9.1% in 2022 compared to 2021,…