Samsung shipped fewer phones than Apple in 2023

Ben Schoon | Jan 16 2024 - 7:02 am PT

Samsung has long been the biggest smartphone maker in the world, but it’s officially lost that title as, in 2023, Samsung shipped fewer phones than Apple did.

According to new data from IDC and Canalys, Samsung conceded its title of the top smartphone maker to Apple in 2023, shipping fewer smartphones over the course of the year for the first time ever. Samsung and Apple have been battling over this top spot for a long time, with Apple often pulling ahead for a quarter at a time, but ultimately losing to Samsung for yearly totals.

Of course, this was no landslide victory. Apple shipped around 234 million smartphones in 2023, while Samsung managed around 226 million. It’s a difference of less than 4%, and in overall market share it puts Apple at 20.1% while Samsung sits closely behind at 19.4%. However, it seems likely that Apple will hold this position for a while.

The smartphone market over the past few years has been on an overall decline, dropping another 3% from 2022 to 2023. Nearly all brands saw their shipments shrink, but Apple didn’t. The company actually managed to ship a little under 4% more phones in 2023, while Samsung saw 13.6% fewer. Xiaomi and Oppo, also in the top five globally, also saw shipments drop. Transsion, which holds brands including Infinix, Tecno, and Itel, saw nearly 31% growth in 2023, but is still a fair bit behind Oppo.

Is Apple alone responsible for this? It’s certainly a huge factor, but the IDC points out that diversification within Android – especially outside of these top five brands – likely also played a major role.

Apple certainly played a part in Samsung’s drop in rank, but the overall Android space is diversifying within itself. Huawei is back and making inroads quickly within 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 the smartphone are gaining traction. Overall, the smartphone space is headed towards a very interesting time.

On that note of foldables, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5, while viewed as excellent overall releases, saw less attention this year amid more competition. Google’s Pixel Fold and the OnePlus Open, for example, were largely accepted as better foldables than Samsung’s Fold 5.

Both the IDC and Canalys also look to AI as a place where the industry will focus going forward. Canalys notes:

Meanwhile, with inventory pressure and global inflation continuing to ease, vendors can finally focus on product innovation and long-term strategy developments, laying down solid foundations for the year ahead. There have already been plenty of new flagship Android launches taking advantage of the on-device AI trend, from Google Pixel and several Chinese vendors, such as HONOR, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi.