After 12 long years at the top of the global smartphone market, Samsung forfeited the throne to Apple in 2023. According to estimates from IDC, the Korean electronics giant saw its smartphone shipments drop 13.6 percent last year amid a broader market slowdown and continued diversification within the Android space. The last time Samsung wasn't on top was 2010, when Nokia was still big enough to leave the competition behind.
For Apple, it's actually the first time that it managed to top the smartphone rankings at the end of a year. While the iPhone maker has long been the market leader in terms of profit, it has never been the biggest vendor in terms of volume - until now. Despite seeing its smartphone growth slow down like the rest of the market, Apple still managed to grow shipments, albeit modestly, in 2023. That makes the premium brand an outlier among the top smartphone makers, with Samsung, Xiaomi and OPPO all seeing shipments drop year-over-year.
Overall smartphone shipments declined 3.2 percent to 1.17 billion units last year, marking the lowest total in a decade. While that decline was "driven largely by macroeconomic challenges and elevated inventory early in the year," IDC expects the smartphone market to return to growth in 2024, a view supported by strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2023.
