Watch: Apple's iPhone reigned supreme in Q1

AppleInsider

According to a new Strategy Analytics report, Apple's flagship iPhone X was the world's best-selling smartphone model in first quarter with 16 million units sold worldwide, followed by iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.

The estimates further debunk the notion that iPhone X was a "flop" or a "failure," a theory posited by some analysts leading up to Apple's earnings report for the second fiscal quarter of 2018. In addition, the top four models in the world, both in terms of shipment amounts and market share, are iPhones, with iPhone 8 and 8 Plus taking second and third place.

The report also found that a total of 345 million smartphone units were sold globally in the first quarter. The top Android models were the Xiaomi Redmi 5A and Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus.

Apple does not release sales figures on individual iPhone sales, but the company said in this week's earnings conference call that it sold 52.2 million iPhones, and that the iPhone X sold the most units of any iPhone model throughout the quarter.

"Customers chose iPhone X more than any other iPhone each week in the March quarter, just as they did following its launch in the December quarter," CEO Tim Cook said. "Since we split the line with the launch of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014, this is the first cycle in which the top of the line iPhone model has also been the most popular."

That jibes with Strategy Analytics' observations.

"Apple has now shifted almost 50 million iPhone X units worldwide since commercial launch in November 2017. The Apple iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus shipped 12.5 and 8.3 million units, respectively, for second and third place," said Juha Winter, Senior Analyst for Strategy Analytics. "The previous-generation iPhone 7 shipped a respectable 5.6 million units for fourth place. Combined together, Apple today accounts for four of the world's six most popular smartphone models."

Just behind the iPhone 7 was the Redmi 5A, an entry-level smartphone for first-time buyers, followed by the Galaxy S9 Plus with 5.3 million units sold.

It is important to note that Galaxy S9 Plus was released just three weeks prior to the end of the first quarter, so it's impressive that it made it onto this list.

Bebe

Prior to the earning announcement, Wall Street was in a “panic mode” due to iPhone X reportedly not selling well. Suddenly, it’s the best selling iPhone? What the heck?

lkrupp

Bebe said:

Prior to the earning announcement, Wall Street was in a “panic mode” due to iPhone X reportedly not selling well. Suddenly, it’s the best selling iPhone? What the heck?

It’s called stock manipulation and it’s perfectly legal apparently. You scare people into selling their stock by putting out fake stories about how the company is failing and the price drops. Then you buy up the cheap stock and start telling everybody how great the company is and the stock price starts to rise. You wait until the price is up enough and then sell your cheaply bought stock to make a huge profit. Then you repeat the process by telling people that the company is in trouble again. Of course your whole scam depends on exploiting the greed and fear of investors who believe you are telling them the truth. There are plenty of gullible suckers to go around so there’s lots of money to be made off of the dumb ones. 

bluefire1

We-- Appleinsider subscribers-- knew all along that the iPhone X would be a big hit. Maybe the analysts should be reading our predictions instead of relying on their misguided notions.

maestro64

I think the Samsung S9 were all channel sales, again the data analysis are playing game, they will tell you they  remove Apple's channel sales and only count real sales to consumers, but they seem to count Samsung channel stuffing.

Again facts do not matter because they have better story to tell.

analogjack

A sure fire way to tell which of two types of cannabis is the best. You place a bowl of each in a room of pot smokers and whichever bowl empties first is the best. That is basically why Apple stuff is not the failure it's made out to be; in the final analysis we have a handful of analysts and tech reporters looking for clickbait on one hand and on the other we have tens of millions of people who know a good operating system and quality phone when they see it and it's likely that .05 percent of them give a sh!t about tech articles.