Apple ends Samsung’s 12-year lead as ‘world’s top smartphone seller’

Apple has had a very successful year in the smartphone market as the company enjoyed a 20% market share, while Samsung ended the year with a 19.4% market share.

Hyderabad: Tech giant Apple has ended rival Samsung‘s 12-year reign as the world’s top smartphone seller as the iPhone took the top spot in 2023 with 234.6 million units being sold.

According to figures put out by International Data Corporation (IDC), Samsung shipped 226.6 million Galaxy smartphones in 2023. which accounts for a  13.6% drop in shipments as compared to the year 2022 when the South Korean firm shipped 262.2 million units.

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The IDC attributes Samsung’s drop to a fragmented market for Android phones, as low-end rivals Xiaomi, Honor, Google, etc., have been increasingly doing good business. The success of Huawei products in China has also had an impact on Samsung’s sales, said IDC.

According to the market research firm, Samsung had a bad year overall, but its smartphones did good business as the firm focused on high-end smartphones like the Galaxy S23, Galaxy Z flip 5 and Galaxy z Fold 5.

Numbers game

Apple has had a very successful year in the smartphone market as the company enjoyed a 20% market share, while Samsung ended the year with a 19.4% market share. Chinese firms – Xiaomi with a market share of 12.5%, Oppo with 8.8% and Transsion with 8.1% – occupied third, fourth and fifth spots respectively.

The previous year saw Samsung end on top with a market share of 21.6 percent, followed by Apple with  18.8%, Xiaomi with 12.7%, Oppo with 8.6% and Vivo with 8.2%. The IDC report suggests that consumers went slow on smartphone upgrades in 2023, owing to inflation and economic uncertainties.

Biggest company in the world

A report from City Index revealed that Apple dominated the international stock market in 2023 and became the world’s biggest company in the year with a worth of $ 3.03 trillion, followed by Microsoft with a worth of $2.52 trillion.