Water is wet, grass is green, Apple is the world's number one smartphone vendor during the holiday season, and Samsung leads the same global hierarchy at the beginning of the year. The latter two used to be among the very few certainties of an otherwise volatile mobile industry, but after taking a look at the latest Counterpoint Research report, you might start to question nature's immovable truths as well.
Maybe water can occasionally be dry too if Apple has managed to eclipse its arch-rival in worldwide smartphone sales between January and March 2025. This is the first Q1 in the market's history when that's happened, mind you, and it's an achievement made that much more remarkable by the overall surge in demand compared to the opening quarter of last year.
Wait, so is the iPhone 16e more popular than the Galaxy S25 Ultra?
Not necessarily. That's because both Apple and Samsung sold many different models around the world in Q1 2025, and there's obviously a good chance the 2024-released iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max each made their own crucial contribution to their manufacturer's dominant 19 percent market share.
Similarly, the Galaxy S25 Ultra cannot solely be blamed for Samsung's decline from a 21 percent slice of the pie in Q1 2023 to 20 percent this time last year to 18 percent now. And the same goes for the "vanilla" Galaxy S25 and the S25 Plus.
The Galaxy S25 family may not be quite as popular as Samsung expected. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena
Still, it's quite clear that the S25 family hasn't set the world on fire, and it's even clearer that the iPhone 16e is a hit. Interestingly, Apple's year-opening numbers either stayed flat or went down in key markets like the US, Europe, and China while growing by double digits in Japan, India, Middle East and Africa, and Southeast Asia.
What do (most of) the regions in the second category have in common? That's right, they're generally dominated by budget-friendly devices... like Samsung's Galaxy A roster. Once again, it's not entirely clear just yet if the iPhone 16e will ultimately prove more successful than the Galaxy A36 or Galaxy A56, but it sure would have helped Samsung if its latest Android mid-rangers had been released prior to their biggest rival.
Watch out for Vivo! And Xiaomi! And Motorola!
With Apple's sales figures up by 4 percent between Q1 2024 and Q1 2025 and Samsung down by 5, you probably won't be shocked to hear that a few different brands outperformed the two industry heavyweights in terms of their year-on-year progress.
In third place, Xiaomi gained 5 percent in shipments and boosted its market share from 13 percent (and 12 percent in Q1 2023) to 14 percent, while Vivo managed to trade places with sister brand Oppo thanks to an industry-leading jump in volumes of 6 percent.
Xiaomi will probably not catch up to Samsung anytime soon, but its steady progress is still quite remarkable.
6 percent is also the latest quarterly growth of the "others" category, where Honor, Huawei, and Motorola are apparently shining brighter than the rest of the market underdogs. Huawei, as you might expect, continues to rely primarily on China, where it reigned supreme among all vendors during the first 90 days of 2025, while Honor and Motorola interestingly "showed growth in multiple markets."
These markets are not named, but in Motorola's case, I'd expect to see both the US and several European countries on such a list, confirming the company's slow but steady and well-deserved rise to being one of the biggest dangers to Apple and Samsung's global duopoly.
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As for the smartphone market on the whole, I'm sad to report that Counterpoint analysts expect this small Q1 growth of 3 percent to be followed by declines caused mainly by "rising economic uncertainties" associated with, you guessed it, Trump's tariffs.
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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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