If you're a hardcore Apple fan who was delighted to hear about Samsung's inability to return its stagnant mobile business to growth even as both the Galaxy S23 and S24 families appear to be selling like hotcakes, today's news may arrive as a welcome reminder that negativity often comes back to bite you.
Just in case it wasn't already abundantly clear that the entire mobile industry is in a bad place right now, word from a South Korea-based investment banking firm suggests that Apple had an even worse beginning of 2024 than its aforementioned arch-rival, which didn't stop the Cupertino tech giant from ruling the global smartphone market in terms of sales volume again.
These are by no means official numbers, which Apple only releases after a full calendar quarter concludes, but the same source claims Samsung sold around 17.4 million Galaxy handsets during the first 31 days of the year, making a comparison between the two figures feel pretty relevant and reliable.
Assuming both sales scores are legit (or at least relatively close to the commercial reality), Apple has certainly started the year on the right foot from a competition standpoint, gaining a decent early advantage over Samsung that may or may not prove large enough to keep the silver medalist in that position at the end of Q1.
That does seem like a very difficult achievement to pull off considering that the Galaxy S24 series was only on sale for around a week in January, being expected to set the global box-office on fire in February and perhaps even March.
Apple also can't be too happy about seeing its iPhone shipment total fall 3 percent from January 2023 and a whopping 17 percent compared to the final month of last year, with both these numbers looking especially poor when compared with Samsung's own negative evolution.
Otherwise put, iPhone demand is declining at a significantly faster pace than Galaxy sales, and Apple doesn't have any brand-new models in stores to rely on for a swift and dramatic recovery.
iPhone 15 sales are especially sluggish in China and the US
We don't have any regional numbers to highlight the seriousness of that situation, but worldwide, the iPhone 15 family has reportedly sold in close to 69 million copies during its first five months of availability, which is clearly a huge number yet less huge than what the iPhone 14 series garnered in a similar timeframe.
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We're talking about a 4 percent drop from one high-end handset roster to the other, which is certainly not tragic but it's also less than ideal.
The iPhone 15's troubles come primarily from the overall "sluggish smartphone sales" stateside, where Apple is an absolute force to be reckoned with, and "intensified competition within China", especially from Huawei, which is very much back from the dead and apparently the new leader of the world's largest market by a "slight margin."
Unsurprisingly, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is once again proclaimed the most successful member of its family, single-handedly accounting for 35 percent of the lineup's global sales to date. The iPhone 15 Pro follows with a solid chunk of 28 percent of its own, while the "standard" iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Plus split the remaining 37 percent in an unspecified manner.
Looking ahead to the near future, it's becoming clearer and clearer that Apple will need to discount its iPhone 15-series devices as deeply and as frequently as possible in markets like China in order to hope that its crown will not be retaken by Samsung soon. The battle between the two behemoths is likely to get increasingly heated over the next six to nine months, which can only benefit consumers around the world.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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