Just as Samsung gets ready on Wednesday to release its newest iteration of Galaxy smartphones comes the news that those phones are no longer the best-selling phones in the world—for the first time in 12 years. As the Guardian reports, the longtime Android king has been usurped in terms of global sales by the Apple iPhone, which sold 234.6 million phones in 2023, as opposed to Samsung's 226.6 million, and grabbed 20.1% of market share to Samsung's 19.4%. That's due to a few factors, according to the International Data Corporation, which released the data and noted "a sort of shifting of power."
Samsung is facing a splintered market in terms of lower-end phones that run on Android, including Google, Honor, Transsion, and Xiaomi. Xiaomi and Transsion notched 145.9 million and 94.9 million units sold, respectively, per the Verge. And, well, Apple customers don't tend to switch horses. Says Ben Wood, chief analyst at research firm CCS Insight, per the Guardian: "I think it will remain a close-fought battle throughout 2024, but there is little doubt that Apple is on a strong trajectory, and the loyalty consumers have [toward] Apple devices means once they get one, they seldom switch to something else." He called the news a "psychological" hit to Samsung but added that it underscores the company's need "to hold on to existing users as well as securing new customers." (More iPhone stories.)
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