Apple's iPhone drops to second place in declining smartphone market

AppleInsider

New estimates report that global smartphone sales have declined for the fifth straight quarter, with the iPhone 14 Pro not enough to keep Apple on top.

iPhone 14 Pro box

At its peak selling period of the holiday quarter 2022, the iPhone had been the world's best-selling smartphone with 25% of the market -- despite production supply issues. This came in the market's fourth quarter of decline, but now the fifth has seen Apple lose the top spot to Samsung.

According to Canalys, the first calendar quarter of 2023 saw a 12% year-on-year drop for the whole industry, and only Samsung saw quarter-on-quarter growth. In Q4 2022, Samsung had a 20% market share, and now for Q1 2023, it grew that to 21%.

Top five smartphone vendors Q1 2023 (Source: Canalys)

Over the same quarter, Apple dropped from its 25% to 21%, putting it behind Samsung. During that quarter, Samsung launched its Galaxy S23 range including the Galaxy S23 Ultra, however, while Apple's latest models have chiefly been on sale in since September 2022.

There was the March 2023 launch of the yellow iPhone 14, but that was a mid-cycle refresh with nothing other than the color updated.

Sales of Apple's iPhone 14 and especially the iPhone 14 Plus have regularly reported to have been poorer than those of the iPhone 14 Pro. Even so, at the start of Q1, it was claimed that the overall iPhone 14 range was selling better than the iPhone 13 models had at the same point a year earlier.

Plus Canalys says there remained "solid demand for [Apple's] iPhone 14 Pro series." Apple's position was helped by it finally reaching supply/demand parity in January 2023.

The overall smartphone market decline means all firms are selling fewer phones, but there has been a more positive increase in market share for Apple. Year on Year, from Q1 2022 to Q1 2023, Samsung dropped from 24% to 22%, but Apple rose from 18% to 21%.

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red oak

The most important data point is the year over year comparison for this quarter, in which Apple’s share increased 18% to 21%.   And, look the long term trend line in the chart of Apple and Samsung.    

Apple is doing an excellent taking market share over time 

danox

Profit-share is all that counts at the end of the day, and Apple targets the upper end of the market by design whether it’s smartphones, iPads, or personal computers. The tech/financial analysts keep getting that confused.

waveparticle

Huawei is not in top 5 Q1 2020?

chasm

Canalys is, like other analysts, just making this up based on selected reports from a sample of markets. Yesterday, another market group stated that Apple sold four out of every five premium smartphones worldwide (the ones with OLED screens in that case).

Both that report and this one could be broadly correct at the same time, but it’s important to remember that they should only be viewed as broad guesses about the state of play in the market as of two or three months ago, at best.

It’s also worth noting that recent trends show that some Android customers are switching to lower-cost iPhones like the iPhone SE 2020, having gotten tired of the really bad value and terrible resale price of lower-end Android units.

avon b7

waveparticle said:

Huawei is not in top 5 Q1 2020?

In Q1 2020, Huawei was topping Apple in worldwide sales (Canalys). 

danwells

The headline is misleading, looking at the graph... Since 2020, we've seen the same pattern each year. Samsung outsells Apple three quarters every year, then Apple takes a big lead in calendar Q4 each year - that's the iPhone intro quarter. and the holiday quarter in a significant part of the world. The real news here is that Apple dang near caught Samsung in Q1 2023. If you look at Q1 2020, 2021 or 2022, the gap between Samsung and Apple is much greater. Apple always has a huge sales bump in Q4, and Samsung's lowest sales percentage is always in Q4 (I'm guessing they move more units in Q4 than any other quarter, which this graph doesn't comment on) , but their PERCENTAGE is at its lowest - because they're competing against brand-new iPhones with 6 month old Galaxies. Q4 has huge overall sales because of the holiday quarter in North America, Europe and some other regions...

The other thing to remember about any Apple/Samsung unit sales comparison is that pretty much every iPhone competes with the TOP of Samsung's line. Everything except the SE is clearly competing with the S series Galaxies (and the less common Z Flip). Even the SE is competitive with the top of the Galaxy A line, which extends to price points significantly below the iPhone SE. Samsung makes even lower-end phones (well below the iPhone SE) in the Galaxy A0xx, F and M series that don't commonly appear in the US market, but are responsible for a lot of sales volume elsewhere in the world. This is slightly complicated by the VERY expensive Z Fold, but my best guess is that sales of that phone are minimal compared to the iPhone Pro Max (which competes with the S23 Ultra). 

lolliver

waveparticle said:

Huawei is not in top 5 Q1 2020?

They would have been back then. But as they are no longer in the top 5 they wouldn't be included in the graph. The graph would show either the top 5 across the entire period or the sales history of the current top 5. The fact Huawei had much higher market share at the start of the period included in this graph would not be relevant. Including Huawei would be like including Atari in a graph of the current top consoles just because they were at the top in the past. 

MacPro

Doesn't seem to translate into profits for Sammy from what I've read recently.

[email protected]

This is the most bogus headline. History shows Apple in 2nd place in Q1. They retake it the rest of the year. This isn't news. In fact, this is a win for Apple. They have cut a 6% Q1 lead to 1%. Also, Android has lost 4% market share. This should be devastating news for other OEMs, not Apple.