The company IDC, which regularly publishes statistics on the smartphone market, recently published its report online on shipments for the last quarter and those for the entire year 2023. And the data shared in this report indicates that 2023 was a very interesting year in several aspects, despite a drop in smartphone shipments worldwide.
Indeed, for the first time,Apple overtook Samsung for an entire year. Despite a difficult context,Apple saw its shipments increase by 3.7% in 2023. In total, the Cupertino company shipped 234.6 million units over 12 months and its market share increased from 18.8% in 2022 to 20.1% in 2023. Samsung, for its part, saw its shipments drop 13.6%. This shipped a total of 226.6 million units. The Korean giant's market share was 21.7% in 2022, it increased to 19.4% in 2023.
More and more premiums sold
“While we have seen strong growth from low-end Android players like Transsion and Xiaomi in the second half of 2023, resulting from rapid growth in emerging markets, the biggest winner is clearly Apple”, said Nabila Popal, research director at IDC's Worldwide Tracker.“Not only is Apple the only player in the Top 3 to show positive annual growth, but it also holds the top annual spot for the first time ever.”
In addition, Apple is doing well despite competition from Huawei in China, its largest market. Indeed, it should be remembered that in 2023, Huawei finally found a way to circumvent American sanctionswhich deprived it of 5G chips.Otherwise, Apple's success would be due to a recent trend in the smartphone market:people are increasingly interested in premium devices, a segment that is dominated by the iPhone.
According to Nabila Popal, the popularity of premium devices is attributed to trade-in offers, as well as new purchase financing options. In any case, today, 20% of smartphones shipped worldwide are high-end models.
Increasingly fierce competition on Android
For the first time since 2010, Samsung is not the smartphone market leader. And while this decline may be caused, in part, by the success of the iPhone, Ryan Reith, group vice president at IDC, has another explanation: competition from other brands.
“Huawei is back and quickly making inroads in China. Brands like OnePlus, Honor, Google and others are launching very competitive devices in the lower price range of the high-end. And foldables and increased discussions around AI capabilities on smartphones are gaining ground”, he indicates.
Good prospects for the smartphone market
In 2023, smartphone shipments worldwide fell by 3.2% compared to 2022. Nevertheless, we have reason to hope for a return to growth in 2024. Indeed, in the second half of 2023, the market was already on the rise. And according to new data from IDC, smartphone shipments even saw a significant increase of 8.5% in the last quarter of 2023.
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By : Keleops AG
