Pretty much every industry suffered market drop in the first quarter of 2023 — but not Samsung’s mobile business.
As per market analytics firm TrendForce, in the last quarter of 2022, Apple sold the most smartphones thanks to the iPhone 14 series. Albeit, for the entire year, Samsung was on top. Now, for Q1 2023, the South Korean giant was able to beat the iPhone maker.
Related
They did it in style, too, as Samsung’s gap with Apple is wider than predicted. For the first quarter, Samsung owns 24.6% of the market, while Apple is only 21.3%.
That’s all thanks to the strong sales of the Galaxy S23 series, which helped Samsung reach the 61.5 million mark in terms of unit sales. Apple suffered a -27.5% growth vs the previous quarter with 53.3 million units.
OPPO sold the most Chinese phones in Q1, albeit its distance from Apple is quite substantial as it only recorded a 10.7% market share. Xiaomi is at number four with 10.6% while vivo took the fifth spot at only 8%.
All top 5 brands suffered a decline during the said quarter. However, things are expected to light up for Q2 with a forecast of ~5% QoQ increase to 260 million units in total.
Albeit, Samsung and Apple may not contribute to that increase as they are both expected to decline this quarter.