Samsung regains lead over Apple in global mobile phone market

Apple has lost its spot as the world’s biggest mobile phone seller after a steep sales drop, with its South Korean rival Samsung retaking the lead in global market share.

Samsung had been the biggest seller of mobile phones for 12 years until the end of 2023, when sales of Apple’s iPhone models overtook it.

Global smartphone shipments increased by 8% to 289.4m units during January-March, according to the research firm IDC. Samsung won a 20.8% market share, beating Apple’s 17.3% share, which has been dented by slowing sales in China.

IDC said Apple shipped 50.1m iPhones in the first quarter, down from the 55.4m units in the same period last year. It was the biggest drop since Covid lockdowns caused global supply chain chaos in 2022.

The drop in Apple sales was partly ascribed to difficulties in China. Chinese rivals including Xiaomi and Huawei have put pressure on Apple and Samsung, and Beijing has moved to ban devices made by foreign companies from workplaces.

Apple is still the dominant player at the top end of the global smartphone market, and sales of the iPhone are its most important product. The company’s market value was $2.7tn (£2.2tn) on Friday, far ahead of every other smartphone maker and behind only Microsoft, which has been boosted by expectations of a boom in artificial intelligence.

However, the back-and-forth movement at the top of the market highlights the intense competition for market share.

Xiaomi, China’s top smartphone maker, occupied the third position with a market share of 14.1% during the first quarter.

Samsung launched its latest highend S24 models at the start of the year, helping it to increase sales. Samsung has bet heavily on AI features such as automatic phone call translation and video editing software to promote the S24 series.

Investors are hoping that Apple will give more details of its own AI capabilities at its worldwide developer conference in June.