IDC confirms: Apple was king of the smartphone market in 2023, overtaking Samsung

16 January 2024
It's the first time Samsung wasn't in the No.1 spot since 2010.

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Ssg, 17 Jan 2024Anyways bitten down to the neck, it's kind of abnormal... moreThe chinese market sells chinese flagships at pretty competitive and usually cheaper prices than apple and samsung (well if the prices are to be believed, usually arent bad in the Uk and you get nice deals on them usually not long after release) and why should they sell their phones much cheaper when they spend as much if not more vs the compareable companies? Isnt that just pandering to the said companies who hold more market share and stopping healthy competition? (they will make more money) Also they use cheap chinese and now indian labour and have multiple cases against them with work conditions still etc, guess its ok when you work closely with america, europe or the UK.

I'd have any iphone 15 phone over any samsung s23 or s24 series, its clear as day that samsung are trying to monopolise the Android market so its essentially be a 2 horse race with apple, how closely they have been partnering with everything (lets be honest, pixels just arent doing as well as good hoped and they are essentially samsung products with pixel branding on top).

Samsung is not the best all rounder either in any price segment, i dont get the over hype of their what, 8 bit displays with low touch sampling/PWM and only HDR10+ certified? Super over saturated for everything (my mate has a s23, really not impressed lol), pretty poor charging (endurance is pretty good ill give them that), no real specific feature they offer (say honor for example with an actual biometric ToF sensor and ultrasonic proximity sensor, others do ultrasonic fingerprints and some do ceramic bodied phones, 360°c nfc like my find x5, unless the S pen is your thing, about the only thing that makes the ultra stand out/is the best in).

Any chinese company that starts challenging and producing better products than either samsung and apple end up getting shut down or knocked down a few pegs for a good few years (look at huawei, still has a better experience than samsung, has better build quality and endurance than the iphone 15 series and gives better built in features, they are still suffering). Biden tried doing it when he got in to office with xiaomi, I'd be surprised if Oppo, honor and the likes dont already have similar issues.

    Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024Even the HD screen of iphone 11 was more expensive than QHD... moreI thought apple went to samsung, LG and BoE for their screens up to the 15 series? Apple just charge more when their phones cost the same to manufacture than all flagships on android and because its the only company in that ecosystem they can.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • yVI
      • 17 Jan 2024

      Toys vs serious phones that you can rely on , what did you expect.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • yVI
        • 17 Jan 2024

        Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024I would choose Samsung over Apple any day. Just because App... moreTakes its time to make sire things work right and not just a marketing gimmick. Android makers are famous for turning out half backed ideas which work half the time and then drop them .

          Middle Man, 17 Jan 2024Barring their flasgship range, whatever they churn out is w... moreI thought I was the only one who thought the new notification shade is horrible. Other than that I love everything about OneUI 6. OneUI 5's notifcation panel and control centre (idk what it's called) was GOATED.

            Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024Apple's displays have narrower bezels, have higher bri... moreI'm not gonna deny that the 15 Pro Max is fragile, it seems more like this year's build that's fragile more than anything before.

            But anyways, I'm not getting "called out" I'm stating facts. The screen to body ratio provided by GSM Arena is simply a myth or as I'd like to say a "trust me bro" kind of information. Those numbers simply do not stack up to real life observations. Let's take the Mi 11 Ultra and compare it to the 13 Ultra, the Mi 11 Ultra has 91% StB ratio compared to the 13 Ultra's 89.5, suggesting a decrease. Yet the old phone has larger "bunny" ears and arguably has a thicker chin.

            Let's talk about 1% APL now, how many HDR highlights are used for 1% APL? Why don't you take the INDUSTRY STANDARD of 10%?? Does 4500 nits matter? Hell no, because it's done in most likely the COOLEST temperature which gives the brightest colors. Exactly like how TV manufacturers give claims such as the LG G3's 2k nit promise compared to the 1.5k calibrated results. 1% does NOT matter. What matters is brightness in day to day circumstances and a 50-80% APL is a good measure of that, takes the worst case scenario into account. I'd say the difference between the Realme GT5 Pro and the 15 Pro Max is completely data based and negligible irl. 100 nits 1500 nits is not that noticeable due to how brightness works. So the iPhone's brightness win in day to day tasks of the past is diminished now, a win for the Oppo.

            "P3 Gamut is better", says who? Like seriously, OLEDs have been able to do 97%+ of the DCI-P3 gamut and that's more than enough. even if they could provide 100% of the gamut, it wouldn't matter if the calibration is off. The colors, the color saturation, the grayscale and finally the most important thing for HDR, PQ EOTF tracking. Apart from some DCI-P3 testing by notebookcheck, I haven't seen anyone else do it so I can't comment. But HDTV Test's wonderful Note10+ vs iPhone 11 Pro Max and his iPhone 12 Pro/Pro Max review showed Apple consistently calibrates their displays well. Android manufacturers don't usually do that. I'm not saying they suck, just stating facts. Everyone and their mother can go and calibrate for Srgb nowadays. But only Asus and maybe Apple and Google are good at DCI-P3. A vivid and saturated output isn't bad, but it's not for "Pro" users, which is what Oppo and Xiaomi target with their Ultra phones.

            "Face id is costlier"
            What's wrong with that? It's more convenient for some people. I find fingerprint scanners more convenient. Doesn't mean one or the other is wrong.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • 4BT
              • 17 Jan 2024

              People assume Apple user buy there products new I get no one look at 10 percent people I got iPhone 4 free because big company breached contract, got iPhone 7 300 max spec now going wait for 15 pro max for 500

                The growth of the premium segment ( wholesale price + $600) in 2023 is 6%. (see article here 2 jan), in sales 280,7 mio (millions of units) 2023 versus 253,2 mio in 2022.
                In the article here you can see that in 2023 1166.9 phones were sold, 39 millions less than 2022. But sales of premium phones rose with 27,5 million in 2023. In that segment Huawei (3->5%) and Samsung (16%-17%)took market share of Apple (75%-71%). So Apple won the market in 2023 and lost against Samsung and Huawei.
                If the premium segment continue to grow as expected than Apple will be king in the following years.

                  Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024Even the HD screen of iphone 11 was more expensive than QHD... moreJust because it's more expensive, doesn't mean it's better.

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                    • Anonymous
                    • XSs
                    • 17 Jan 2024

                    Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024Samsung oled costs much more than Boe oled. Reason chinese ... moreEven the HD screen of iphone 11 was more expensive than QHD from S20+.

                    Because Sammy is ripping off Apple, and Apple has no other choice. And rest of your words were bs as always

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                      • Viv
                      • 4nH
                      • 17 Jan 2024

                      Anybody can buy an iPhone, I don't get this luxury nonsense. It's the in phone. I guarantee you, if celebrities switched to an android phone, a lot of the people in the public would do the same.

                        Anynomous, 17 Jan 2024Because iOS is used by a single company. Can't you eve... moreYeah, and? That still doesn't mean that all the Android brands are one thing, they aren't. Also maybe read the comment I replied mine to. Apple has the most market share of all smartphone brands, period, that's it, doesn't matter what OS they use, they sell the most phones out of all phone companies.

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                          • Anynomous
                          • XSs
                          • 17 Jan 2024

                          DarlingYext, 17 Jan 2024Apple has more market share than any other smartphone brand... moreBecause iOS is used by a single company. Can't you ever use your brain for once?

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                            • Anonymous
                            • XSs
                            • 17 Jan 2024

                            jiyen235, 17 Jan 2024and who provided that info? The camera system is costlier b... moreApple's displays have narrower bezels, have higher brightness, are better calibrated, use face id and the bodies use titanium.

                            I don't even need to write an essay you call you out. X7 has more screen-to-body ratio, way way way more peak brightness on 1% APL, The p3 gamut is also better, face id is more costlier than more futuristic UD FP, and Apple's titanium body is cheap and fragile compared to x7 premium leather.

                              Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024And another thing is Samsung's most sold phone is a54 ... moreI'm not an Apple guy, I'm not a Samsung guy either. I use an S22 Ultra though, does that make me a Samsung fanboy now?

                              My bad for making the assumption that the A04 sold the most, I was going by past data, for the past few years the A0 series was their most popular one. Additionally, the Q1 and Q2 sales data (by omedia) clearly showed that the A series FAR outsell the S series. Only the S23 Ultra sold a lot. A14 and A54 both sold a lot, with A14 far outselling anything else. Do you think the A14 and A04 are so far apart that I should be called an "Apple fan" just for this mistake? Grow up.

                              I don't understand why you must hate Apple with such a passion and anyone who says anything against Android is villainized. I love android and always will, I just think the makers need a change in direction. Economies are getting worse yes but the price of phones have just been rising for the past few years. 256 GB is the bare minimum for an Ultra phone. We should get 512 GB yet here we are getting charged 100 USD per 100 GB. Pathetic from all manufacturers.

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                                • Anonymous
                                • IVK
                                • 17 Jan 2024

                                Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024People choose android = high IQ People choose Apple = low ... moreKinda funny when I see most of hardcore android fanboys always saying “iSheep” being blinded by Apple and dumb” I think normal android user won’t go that far, I use android kinda long time, feel like to feel iPhones too, as you said my boss also use iPhone kinda long time, and he describe Apple it’s like a luxury car and not change much it’s design because it’s like a car maker: Porches, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and others luxury car that has their own design identity.

                                  Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024Dude x7 ultra's each component is better and costlier ... moreand who provided that info? The camera system is costlier but is the body design more expensive? Is the display more bespoke and expensive? Apple's displays have narrower bezels, have higher brightness, are better calibrated, use face id and the bodies use titanium.

                                  I'm not saying the Find X7 Ultra sucks, far from it, but they're just doing it wrong by producing a few phones and making the cost too high. Phones innovated far more back in the day, doubling in camera sensor size and still cost far less. Again, Oppo doesn't suck, they just have a business tactic which I think is not beneficial for them nor the consumers, especially global users who don't get the phones at all.

                                    Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024Do you really think any chinese phone costs more to be mad... moreiPhones are most definitely cheaper to make. Their main costs come from four VERY important factors. Marketing, Availability, QUALITY ASSURANCE and software support.

                                    Chinese companies do not market much outside China, their phones are tough to find, software (at least in Xiaomi now) is buggy or misses the mark sometimes and finally the software support isn't great to say the least. Chinese phone manufacturers use complex camera sensors and technologies. Apple does not, they take what's been tried and tested, refine it and use it when it's cheap to make. They use expensive stuff that was expensive in the past. For example, their main sensor, 48 MP and 1/1.28", it debuted in the 14 Pro/Pro Max in 2022 yet Huawei used a 50 MP 1/1.28" sensor back in 2020 in their P40 Pro.

                                    Phones aren't just the overall costs, R&D, marketing, etc. must be taken into account as well. iPhones are cheaper to make, tougher to maintain and finally they are made in huge batches now so they take advantage of economies of scale and get lower prices overall. Chinese phone manufacturers can't do this except for BBK, they get similar parts yes but how many hugely expensive flagships do they sell? Also, if costs and profits are counted separately for the companies then those companies can't get EoS at all. Basically Chinese phone manufacturers tend to profit less than Apple per unit due to all of those.

                                    I am not saying Apple sucks, just saying Android doesn't suck either.

                                      Anonymous, 17 Jan 2024Total waste of time this comment... Apple is the Rolex o... moreApple has no bad choices now, they used to be bad tho, remember the iPhone XR? The iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 were the phones that made the most sense considering their price WORLDWIDE. Pro and Pro max models are hugely overpriced in other countries. Going from 1000 USD in the US to 1500 USD+ in some countries. I'm not saying Apple is bad now. What I'm trying to say is android has choices you can't go wrong with either. Most phones are amazing above 500 USD. The problem is the price, you don't go wrong with it but it just doesn't feel as satisfying as let's say a Oneplus 8 or Oneplus 3 was back in the day. If android is selling the same design and features then what is Apple doing? Your comment is too hateful towards Androdi but too lenient towards Apple. Both suck now but at least Apple "might" have some extra value in it.

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                                        • Middle Man
                                        • Dk6
                                        • 17 Jan 2024

                                        Barring their flasgship range, whatever they churn out is worse than the Chinese competition , arguably worst .removing charging bricks from budget phones,sub par processers, fat bezels,poor asthenic design.
                                        One UI was really an honest idea , but they ruined it by adding a ton of blue effect, compromised the one hand concept itself by making quick panel into iOS control centre.
                                        F/A/M series earlier were decent but now they are just junk.

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