For the first time in over a decade, Apple became the top smartphone vendor in 2023 with the most number of shipments. Samsung was a close second.

According to IDC, Apple shipped around 234.6 million smartphones in 2023 while Samsung was behind by less than 1 crore and shipped 226.6 million smartphones.

The biggest gamechanger was the last quarter of 2023 where Apple’s share in the market was almost one-fourth while Samsung’s plummeted to 16.3 per cent.

Overall, Apple’s market share was 20.1 per cent while that of Samsung 19.4 per cent. One of the reasons for Samsung lagging behind is increasing competition from other Android vendors.

Notably, the total number of shipments reported a decline of 3.2 per cent from 2022. It came down to 1.17 billion which is the lowest volume in a decade.

The most possible reasons for this are macroeconomic challenges and high inventory that companies had at the start of this year. However, Apple registered 3.7 per cent growth from 2022 despite challenges in China.

Coming to other brands, Xiaomi, Oppo and Transsion secured third, fourth and fifth spots respectively . However, only Transsion was able to register a positive growth in number of shipments.

According to Indian Express, senior analyst of Canalys, Toby Zhu said that lower-priced mid-range devices have been driving growth, aided by recovering demand in emerging markets.