Android struggles against iPhone as US smartphone sales drop by a quarter
Sales of all smartphones have continued to decline in the US, but for Q2 2023, Apple's iPhone did dramatically better than Android.
iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus
US shipments of smartphones were already lower in Q1 2023 compared to the year before, but now Counterpoint Research says Q2 2023 figures are 24% down on the same period in 2022.
However, that is the overall decline and when broken out into Android and iPhone, the situation is different. During this quarter, Android shipments dropped 38% compared to Q2 2022, but Apple's iPhone only fell 6% YoY -- and it increased its share of the market.
"Despite fewer shipments from Apple compared to the same quarter last year, the brand's share of shipments was still up 10% YoY," said Associate Research Director Hanish Bhatia. "Apple's resilience was driven by strong promotions across postpaid and prepaid. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile continued to offer $800+ promo credits for the iPhone 14 while old-generation iPhones were also steeply discounted across prepaid."
Source: Counterpoint
While not giving figures, Counterpoint Research also says that foldable smartphones did better than the rest of the market.
"In spite of declining smartphone shipments, the foldable market reached important milestones in the quarter," said senior research analyst Maurice Klaehne. "Motorola launched the Razr+, its first foldable device in the US since 2021, and Google launched its first-ever foldable, the Pixel Fold, providing alternatives to the Samsung Galaxy foldables."
Samsung has now launched the next generations of its Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold devices, and Counterpoint says it's possible that their popularity means "foldable shipments could reach their highest level ever in the US in Q3 2023."
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Comments
Everything isn’t all about absolute lowest price at all times, otherwise our buildings would be frequently falling down and we would all be driving Yugos.
It is not of course but the way it's marketed, and as attractive as they make it sound, people with little disposable income get sucked in. My jobless grandson and part-time working girlfriend both have the latest iPhones, tho they often have issues with service being cut-off for non-payment.
That's not Apple's problem though, that's for ATT, T-Mo or whoever to build-in the loss on the prices we all pay for service when we're being responsible customers.
I think I recall Google doing a similar promotion with ATT on the Pixel phone lineup, which may help explain the sudden surge in Pixel sell-thru. Some buyers want a really nice phone, give the appearance of being better off than they are, but with no spare money in the bank to buy one. The carriers make select phones "free" with an asterisk in order to lock in those poor and/or money-management-challenged customers.
Maybe for low end phones... However, for higher end smartphones like iPhones, I believe people are much more locked into their platform of choice than they are their carrier. If I had a choice between giving up my iPhone or giving up my carrier, it would be a very quick decision... the carrier is just a dumb pipe.
In better times, a lot of consumers wouldn't think much of spending an extra $100-$200 to buy a better smartphone from Apple or Samsung. But when that extra $100-$200 might be needed to pay for the increasing cost of other necessities, a Pixel will all of sudden look like a better bargain, than it looked when it was easy to spend an extra $100- $200 for a smartphone.
Numbers do not lie. Deep State people have a history of lying, Those numbers make no sense.