Tariffs sent smartphone shipments from China down 72% last month

Smartphone shipments from China got seriously hung up in April, as the (now paused) reciprocal tariffs between the two nations shocked some parts of the international supply chain into a standstill, with exports dropping 72% last month. 

According to Chinese customs data and numbers from Trade Data Monitor cited by Bloomberg, the country sent $689 million worth of smartphones to the US in April. That figure sat at $2.46 billion the month before and $2.27 billion for the same month last year. In fact, China’s smartphone shipment value hasn’t sunk this low since August 2011, when Apple fans were still getting to grips with the first iPhone with FaceTime and the American view of the East Asian nation was altogether rosier.