Samsung overtakes Apple to become world leader in smartphone sales

In the first quarter of this year, the South Korean company Samsung surpassed Apple and became the leader in the world in terms of smartphone sales, Counterpoint Research reports.

According to the source, Apple was able to take the lead in the fourth quarter of last year, occupying 23% of the smartphone market, while Samsung was limited to 16%. However, as a result of the first quarter of this year, the situation has changed. Samsung accounted for 20% of global sales, while Apple fell behind with a 17% market share.

Prior to that, Samsung's share was around 20% in the second and third quarters of last year, and in the first quarter of 2023, it reached 22% in total, thanks to which the South Korean manufacturer occupied a leading position in the global market.

According to the results of the first quarter of this year, Samsung managed to sell 59.4 million smartphones. Although Apple sold 50.5 million smartphones, that is, reducing sales by 13% year-on-year, due to the increase in the share of iPhone Pro family models in the sales structure, the company raised the average selling price of smartphones to a record level for the season.

In general, according to the results of the first quarter, smartphone models costing more than $800 occupied 18% of sales volumes in the global market. In any case, Apple products occupy half of the ten most popular smartphone models throughout the history of the study.

Apple's smartphone revenue fell 11% in the period, Samsung's revenue rose 2% year-over-year, and Xiaomi's rose 30%. By the way, the products of this Chinese brand occupy 14% of the world market and actually occupy the third place, and the volume of deliveries of smartphones of the same name increased by more than 1/3 annually.

Global smartphone sales of all brands increased by 7% in the first quarter, and device sales increased by 6% to 296.9 million units. According to Counterpoint Research, more than 10 manufacturers have already released smartphones with artificial intelligence functions, and in total more than 30 models have been introduced. By the end of this year, they can occupy up to 11 percent of the world market.