Apple tops Samsung in global smartphone shipments for first time in 2023
Apple's shipped iPhone units made up over 20% of the global market share in 2023
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Apple led smartphone shipments in 2023, stripping Samsung of its long-held leading position in the market, the International Data Corporation (IDC) said Monday.
Preliminary data from the firm’s Worldwide Quarter Mobile Phone Tracker showed the iPhone maker made shipments of 234.6 million units last year. That marked a 3.7% year-over-year increase from 2022, when IDC reported 226.3 million shipments by the company.
Apple's iPhone shipments made up 20.1% of the global market in 2023, IDC said.
Several iPhones are displayed in the Apple Store on Feb. 3, 2023, in New York City. (Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Samsung’s annual 226.6 million shipments landed it in second place with a 19.4% market share, according to IDC. It reportedly saw 262.2 million units shipped and a 21.7% market share in the year before that.
Before 2023, the South Korea-based company had held the No. 1 position among smartphone companies for 13 years.
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Nabila Popal, research director for the IDC worldwide tracker team, said in a statement that Apple climbed to the top of the leaderboard for the year "despite facing increased regulatory challenges and renewed competition from Huawei in China."
Customers and pedestrians inside and outside the Samsung flagship store on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in Shanghai on Sept. 4, 2023. (Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
There have been concerns about demand in China for Apple’s newest slate of iPhones, according to recent reports. The company rolled out the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max to the global market in September, with prices ranging from $799 to $1,199 in the U.S., depending on the model.
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"Apple’s ongoing success and resilience is in large part due to the increasing trend of premium devices, which now represent over 20% of the market, fueled by aggressive trade-in offers and interest-free financing plans," Popal said.
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| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 237.33 | +2.40 | +1.02% |
Apple Inc.
"Apple certainly played a part in Samsung’s drop in rank but the overall Android space is diversifying within itself," Ryan Reith, vice president of IDC's worldwide mobility and consumer device trackers group, said in a statement. "Huawei is back and making inroads quickly within China. Brands like OnePlus, Honor, Google, and others are launching very competitive devices in the lower price range of the high end. And foldables and increased discussions around AI capabilities on the smartphone are gaining traction."
The Apple Inc. logo at one of the company's stores in Sydney. (Brent Lewin/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Global smartphone shipments, at nearly 1.76 billion for 2023, were at their lowest level in 10 years, according to IDC.
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However, IDC said it anticipates the smartphone market will recover this year, citing improvement in 2023’s third and fourth quarters.
In the third quarter of 2023, the total smartphone units shipped only fell 0.1% compared with the same three-month period the year before, according to IDC. Companies shipped 326.1 million in the fourth quarter last year, marking an 8.5% annual increase.
The firm released the report just days before Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2024, where the company is slated to introduce its S24 slate of smartphones.