Apple secured first place despite problems in China. Brittany Hosea-Small/Getty Images
According to IDC shipment data, Apple is the top dog in the global smartphone market in 2023.
It is the first time since 2010 that a company has overtaken Samsung in global smartphone sales.
The win comes amid tough challenges in the US and China for Apple.
Tim Cook has a good reason to smile today. Because there is a little more light in the storm for Apple in sight – the smartphone manufacturer will replace its competitors Samsung as the world‘s largest smartphone manufacturer in 2023. This is shown by new data from the International Data Corporation (IDC). Apple left 2023 with a sales record, even though the global smartphone market is shrinking overall.
This is a milestone: it is the first time that Samsung has not been in first place in sales since 2010. Apple is also the smartphone manufacturer that was able to win the most new customers this year, explained IDC research director Nabila Popal.
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The tech giant shipped an estimated 80.5 million iPhones in the final quarter of 2023 – more than any other smartphone maker – recording a 24.7 percent increase in market share. Samsung, on the other hand, only shipped around 53 million smartphones in the same quarter, and saw its market share decline by 16.3 percent.
Overall, the smartphone market shrank by 3.2 percent year-on-year – a low in the last ten years. “Apple’s continued success and resilience is due in large part to the increasing trend toward premium devices, which now represent over 20 percent of the market and are fueled by aggressive trade-in offers and interest-free financing plans,” Popal said in a statement.
However, this gain for Apple comes after some losses
During the fourth quarter 2023 conference call, Cook said that Apple’s overall revenue fell for the fourth quarter in a row, but iPhone sales increased.
The complicated relationship with China has weighed on sales in Apple’s largest market. Some reports suggest that the iPhone 15 may not perform as well as previous models launched in China. The country recently sharply restricted the use of iPhones by government officials, and Chinese tech company Huawei is proving to be increasingly tough competition.
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And the headache continues in 2024: In the first week of the year, Apple shares were downgraded by two analysts and fell by six percent within five days. Analysts at Barclay pointed to the “lackluster” performance of the iPhone 15 in China.
But even though the smartphone business is tough right now, Apple is proving that an iPhone is a major revenue generator – in the US and around the world.
This article was translated from English by Jonathan Löwe. You can find the original here.