South Korean firm regains pole position amid biggest drop in iPhone sales since Covid-19 lockdowns.
Apple has lost its spot as the world’s biggest mobile phone seller after a steep sales drop as South Korean rival Samsung retook the lead in the 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 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 that Apple shipped 50.1m iPhones in the first quarter, down from the 55.4m units it shipped in the same period last year. It was the biggest drop in iPhone sales since Covid-19 lockdowns caused global supply chain chaos in 2022.
The drop in Apple sales, despite a growing global market, was partly ascribed to difficulties in China. Local rivals including Xiaomi and Huawei have put pressure on Apple and Samsung. At the same time, China’s government 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 (£2.16tn) 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 among smartphone makers for market share.
This is what we're up against
Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.
Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.
Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.
Bad actors spreading disinformation online to undermine democracy.
But we have something powerful on our side.
We’ve got you.
The Guardian is funded by readers like you in Mexico and the only person who decides what we publish is our editor.
If you want to join us in our mission to share independent, global journalism to the world, we’d love to have you on side.
If you can, please support us on a monthly basis. It takes less than a minute to set up, and you can rest assured that you’re making a big impact every single month in support of open, independent journalism. Thank you.
Fuente de nota e imagen: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/15/apples-loses-mantle-as-worlds-biggest-phone-seller-to-samsung-as-china-sales-drop