Yes, it appears that Samsung has managed to (barely) fend off the Cupertino-based threat once again, finishing last year with an extremely similar volume advantage over Apple as in 2023. Technically, the gap between the mobile industry's gold and silver medalists looks completely unchanged at first glance, but that's most likely due to number rounding.
The market's top performer is not Samsung... or Apple
When Counterpoint's comprehensive 2024 global smartphone shipment report comes out, we're likely to see Samsung's edge from 2023 boosted... by a small degree, as the market's heavyweight champion of the world actually gained 1 percent in volume year-over-year while the vice-champion saw its sales go down by 2 percent.
Somewhat curiously, that resulted in a market share dip of 1 percent for both tech giants, and with Samsung having dropped from 21 to 20 percent already between 2022 and 2023, it's clear that there's a lot of room for improvement going forward as far as both iPhones and Galaxy handsets are concerned.
There hasn't been an awful lot of movement in the global top five in the last couple of years
Of course, the reason why Samsung and Apple's share figures are equally down is that the industry as a whole finally bounced back to growth after two pretty bad years. We're not talking about massive growth, and we're certainly not headed for a recovery to pre-pandemic sales numbers, but a 4 percent jump definitely beats no jump at all.
In third place, Xiaomi was undoubtedly one of the catalysts of this resurgence, with its 12 percent year-on-year improvement representing the greatest such progress among the top five vendors. The biggest of China's smartphone manufacturers has been on a slow but steady ascent for several years now, leaping from 12 to 13 percent global market share between 2022 and 2023 and a 14 percent slice of the pie last year.
This latest boost was apparently driven by a "premium push and aggressive expansion activities", confirming the mobile industry's larger "premiumization" trend of the post-COVID era. While this is likely to continue for another year or two, the AI technologies currently reserved for the most premium and expensive phones out there are expected to spread to lower-end and lower-cost devices relatively quickly, which may hurt the long-term prospects of high-end models and brands specializing primarily in high-enders.
Other key conclusions and forecasts
In addition to Xiaomi, Vivo had a pretty solid 2024 as well, improving its previous-year sales score by 9 percent and almost beating sister brand Oppo for fourth place in global shipments mainly thanks to unusually strong results in India and China.
In fact, Counterpoint Research claims that Vivo was last year's number one vendor in its homeland of China, which just so happens to be the world's single largest smartphone market (aside from the most populated country of them all). Huawei was another excellent Chinese performer in 2024, according to this report and many others like it from the last 12 months or so, but that was apparently not enough to propel the Android outcast back into the global top five club.
The same goes for "challenger brands" like Honor, Motorola, and Transsion, the former two of which joined Huawei as the fastest-growing vendors in the top ten... without managing to crack the top five.
The iPhone 16 family was not quite the huge hit Apple probably expected. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena
As far as individual models go, the only ones mentioned today are Samsung's Galaxy S24 series (which are once again said to have outperformed their forerunners, especially in Western Europe and the US), and Apple's iPhone 16 family (which was met with a "mixed response" worldwide, nonetheless helping its maker "grow strongly" in Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific).
Looking ahead, Counterpoint analysts expect the smartphone market to continue expanding in 2025, both in terms of volumes and revenues. The latter indicator will likely have a better year than the former, growing by 8 percent compared to just 4.
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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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