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These are the best-selling smartphone brands in the world
Samsung remains the most-bought smartphone brand in the world amid a declining market.
businesstech.co.za
Samsung remains the best-selling smartphone brand in the world, even if its year-on-year sales have taken a massive hit.
According to analyst firm International Data Corporation, IDC, the worldwide shipments of all smartphones in Q3 2022 totalled 301.9 million – a 9.7% year-over-year decline.
The Q3 decline is the 5th consecutive quarter drop and marks the biggest third-quarter decline in the smartphone industry.
The leading cause is the decline in demand in emerging markets, as dire economic outlooks caused by rising costs and inflation have hampered disposable incomes.
With excess inventory coming into the quarter, OEMs reduced shipments and orders in an attempt to reduce inventory.
Chinese vendors were particularly hard-hit, but all vendors worldwide were negatively impacted.
The struggles of the smartphone industry can be seen when examing ICD’s data:
| Company | 3Q22 Sm | 3Q22 MS | 3Q21 Sm | 3Q21 MS | Y-O-Y Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Samsung | 64.0 | 21.2% | 69.5 | 20.8% | -7.8% |
| 2. Apple | 51.9 | 17.2% | 51.1 | 15.3% | 1.6% |
| 3. Xiaomi | 40.5 | 13.4% | 44.3 | 13.3% | -8.6% |
| 4. Vivo | 25.9 | 8.6% | 33.3 | 10.0% | -22.1% |
| 4. Oppo | 25.8 | 8.6% | 33.2 | 9.9% | -22.3% |
| Others | 93.6 | 31.0% | 102.7 | 30.7% | -8.8% |
| Total | 301.9 | 100% | 334.2 | 100% | -9.7% |
Samsung had the largest market share in Q3 2022, with 21.2%. This marks a 0.4% market share increase since Q3 2021. However, the company’s market share dropped by 7.8%.
Apple came in second for most smartphones sold and increased both its number of shipments and market share from the same period a year prior.
Xiaomi came in third, while Vivo and Oppo were tied for fourth in terms of their market share percentage. Vivo and Oppo suffered the worst year-on-year change, hitting over 20%.
Despite the challenging economic climate, the top 5 best-selling vendor positions did not change from the year prior.
Regionally speaking, ICD expected emerging markets in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to see the largest declines – with double-digit percentage deceases.
The Chinese market was expected to have a 12%, but considering the nation’s size, that has a massive impact on the global smartphone industry.
Developed economies such as North America, Western Europe, and Japan were expected to have low to mid-single-digit declines.
At the same time, Central and Eastern Europe were the exceptions as they were not expected to report a decline over Q3.
Q4 and 2023 expectations
As phone demand shows no sign of improvement in Q4 2022, “vendors have to work on a prudent production forecast with the supply chain while working closely with the channel to stabilize market share,” said Canalys Analyst Sanyam Chaurasia.
However, Q4 may see an improvement in overall sales as consumers who have delayed purchases went into the festive period, where steep discounts and bundling promotions were expected.
Chaurasia did note that the festive sale period would likely be slow and steady but also noted that it was too early to see if it would be a watershed moment for the economy.
On the other hand, Nabila Popal, research director with IDC’s Worldwide Tracker team, believes that a steeper decline will still occur during the remainder of 2022 until the market softly recovers in 2023.
The IDC has also recently revised its outlook for 2023 to take into account the macroeconomic environment and expects a recovery of 2.8% for the year. However, growing costs for vendors mean that the IDC reduced its smartphone forecast by over 70 million units.
