After years of steadily-increasing growth, smartphone sales actually decreased very slightly in 2017 from the year before. For the last two years, that growth had slowed dramatically - but this is the first time since 2008 that fewer phones were sold from one year to the next.

As this chart by Statista shows , smartphone shipments capped out just below 1.5 billion in 2016, with just a touch under than in 2017, making for a 0.1% dip. These results seem to be in line with Apple's just-announced holiday quarter earnings statement, where it was revealed that while the average price of an iPhone is higher than ever, they sold fewer devices than expected overall .

Chart of the day BI Graphics/Samantha Lee

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