For the primary time, Apple has overtaken Samsung to ship probably the most smartphones in a 12 months, based on IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Cellular Telephone Tracker. Though IDC cautions that its knowledge is preliminary and topic to alter, a second analysis company, Canalys, additionally has Apple within the prime spot for all of 2023. IDC has Apple’s complete handset shipments at 234.6 million, up from 226 .6 million for Samsung. Xiaomi, Oppo and Transsion spherical out the highest 5 with 145.9, 103.1 and 94.9 million smartphones shipped respectively.
IDC notes that the final time Samsung did not prime the annual checklist was 13 years in the past, in 2010. Again then, Apple wasn’t even within the prime 5. As an alternative, it was Nokia in first place, Samsung in second, LG Electronics in third, ZTE in fourth and Analysis in Movement (makers of BlackBerry units) in fifth. Should you wanted any proof that 13 years is a very long time within the smartphone trade, then this checklist of firms could be it.
“Not solely is Apple the one participant within the Prime three to indicate constructive annual development, it additionally ranks No. 1 yearly for the primary time,” stated Nabila Popal, analysis director of IDC’s Worldwide Tracker group. “Apple’s continued success and resilience is essentially because of the development development of premium units, which now account for greater than 20 % of the market, fueled by aggressive trade-in gives and interest-free financing plans.”
Whereas IDC notes that Apple performed a key function in unseating Samsung from the highest spot, the corporate additionally noticed intense competitors from different Android makers similar to Huawei, OnePlus, Honor and Google. It isn’t simply Samsung being challenged by these firms, Canalys notes that Huawei’s “enhancing energy” is also an issue for Apple’s development within the Chinese language market. Final 12 months, stories emerged that Huawei was in a position to bypass US sanctions and construct a sophisticated 7nm processor from Chinese language chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing Worldwide Corp. (SMIC) in its Mate 60 Professional smartphone able to 5G speeds.
Whereas complete smartphone shipments fell by three.2% in 2023 in comparison with 2022, there are indicators that the market could also be recovering from its latest stoop. IDC stories that shipments rose eight.5% 12 months over 12 months within the fourth quarter, whereas Canalys rose eight% after seven consecutive quarters of decline.