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According to the latest data from IDC, Samsung has once again overtaken Apple as the largest smartphone manufacturer in the market, with China’s smartphone players also noting strong growth
The smartphone market itself took a noticeable decline during the coronavirus pandemic, but is now climbing steadily once again, increasing 7.8% to 289.4 million units in Q1 2024.
Of these new sales, Samsung had a 20.8% market share, while Apple accounted for 17.3% and China’s Xiaomi had 14.1%.
Apple and Samsung have been passing the smartphone crown back and forth over the past year, with Apple having held the top spot as recently as December last year.
According to IDC, this back-and-forth represents a changing market, with a resurgence of Chinese brands like Huawei and Xiaomi.
The results also saw Chinese smartphone manufacturer Transsion enter the top five for the first time, squeezing out Vivo. While relatively unknown in the West, Transsion is a rapidly growing smartphone brand in emerging markets, particularly Africa where it sold more phones than both Samsung and Xiaomi.
“The smartphone market is emerging from the turbulence of the last two years both stronger and changed,” said Nabila Popal, research director with IDC’s Worldwide Tracker team.
“Xiaomi is coming back strong from the large declines experienced over the past two years and Transsion is becoming a stable presence in the Top 5 with aggressive growth in international markets,” she said.
“In contrast, while the top two players both saw negative growth in the first quarter, it seems Samsung is in a stronger position overall than they were in recent quarters.”
Q1 2024 marks the third consecutive quarter of shipment growth for the worldwide smartphone market, a strong indicator that a recovery is well underway. https://t.co/KXkfbp65RZ pic.twitter.com/DnSQBB9cgl
— IDC (@IDC) April 15, 2024
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