Apple traditionally sold more smartphones than Samsung in Q4
The year that just passed, 2023, was a so-so-la-la year for global smartphone sales. Although sales of smart mobile phones picked up somewhat in the last quarter, about 4 percent fewer smartphones were sold over the entire year, compared to 2022. Ultimately, an estimated just over 1.1 billion new smartphones were sold. More than a quarter of these, 320 million, found a happy owner in the last quarter of 2023.
Apple traditionally number 1 in Q4
Canalys reported earlier this week that the last quarter of 2023 was a good quarter, especially for Apple. Nearly one in four smartphones (24%) sold worldwide in the last three months of last year were from Apple. The American manufacturer thus left its eternal – well, since 2007 – competitor far behind. Samsung did not achieve more than a 17 percent sales share in the fourth quarter. It is striking that both market leaders lost something compared to the previous year when Apple’s sales share was 25 percent and Samsung’s 20 percent.
Apple has been the king of the fourth quarter for years. This of course has everything to do with the fact that just before the fourth quarter counters start running, Apple always unveils its new iPhone series. Xiaomi, which has long been the number three smartphone manufacturer in the world, saw its sales market share increase by 2 percentage points in the fourth quarter, to 13 percent.
Recovery is slow
Despite the fact that fewer smartphones were sold in 2023 than in 2022, Canalys market analysts see a slight recovery in the market. They base this on the fact that more smartphones were sold in the last two quarters of 2023 than in the same quarters of 2022. Will that recovery continue? To a large extent, that remains a waste of money.
Last year we thought the smartphone market had reached its lowest point. That turned out not to be the bottom after all.
