Top 7 Best-Selling Smartphones Last Year Were All iPhones

Wednesday February 21, 2024 5:32 am PST by Tim Hardwick

Apple's iPhone models dominated the top 10 best-selling smartphones in 2023, with only Samsung's mid-range devices making the list, according to Counterpoint Research's Global Monthly Handset Model Sales Tracker.

Apple took all top seven positions – a first for the company. iPhone 14 models made up the top three for the series to become the best-selling smartphone of 2023, with the US and China making up half of its sales. The model contributed 19% of the total iPhone sales for 2023.

The iPhone 13 came fourth largely thanks to popularity in Japan and India, while iPhone 15 models took the fifth, sixth, and seventh slots, with the iPhone 15 Pro Max the best-selling model in Apple's newest lineup, despite its relatively late launch in September last year. From the tracker report:

Apple's total sales remained flat in 2023 even as major competitors declined. This stability was partly due to a significant boost from emerging markets like India and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). In 2023, India became the fifth smartphone market to exceed 10 million iPhone unit sales in a single year, highlighting the market's growing importance for Apple. These factors contributed to the iPhone 15 series sales matching the performance of the iPhone 14 series in 2022.

Samsung's budget A series devices filled eighth, ninth, and tenth positions, thanks to their strong value proposition, but none of the Korean company's flagship premium Galaxy phones even made the list.

Counterpoint's research backs up previous data from market research firm IDC, which showed Apple overtook Samsung as the top global smartphone manufacturer in 2023, shipping more phones annually than Samsung for the first time.

Tag: Counterpoint

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Top Rated Comments

I7guy

36 months ago

Quite the accomplishment for apple. The 14 and 15 are great phones overall.

Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jhwalker

36 months ago

I do not believe the companies research because it is not statically possible when it is a matter of fact that Android mobile phones have approximately 70% of the mobile phone market. This means consumers are buying way way more Android phones than Apple but yet we are expected to believe that with the merge market share that Apple has that they hold the top 7 slots of the global mobile phone market!!!, sorry, not possible because if it was possible, Apple's market share would be way way more than what it is but it isn't.

It actually IS possible, given the intense fragmentation of the Android market.

IOW, there are literally HUNDREDS of different Android phones sold all over the world, competing with only 5-10 active iPhone models. So it's clear that, even though individual models of iPhones are at the top of the list, the hundreds of Android models will outweigh those few iPhone models when you look at TOTAL sales.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

CapitalIdea

36 months ago

Finally, something Samsung cannot just copy.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

skottichan

36 months ago

The thing I can't get over is that the normal 14 is literally just the 13 but with autofocus on the selfie camera and satellite features. No other new features. And people pay extra to buy it 😭

I mean, makes sense, the smartphone market has reached maturity. If you look back at the dumb phone era, you'd see the same thing happened. There were big innovations early on, mostly in micronization, to the point that 90's comedies leaned on the joke that phones were going to be super tiny in the future. Then the segment matured and you'd get the occasional gimmick, or new form factor, but the overall technology would only slightly advance year over year.

We are seeing this now with smartphones, which to be honest, is best for the consumer, there is less *need* for the latest and greatest, as the form factor and the overall tech has plateaued, and now it's stability with the occasional gimmick. So it's less about buying the new version every year, and more about only needing to buy when you have the need.

My wife and I both ungraded to 15s (the Plus for her and the Pro for me) from an 11PM and a 12PM respectively, and to be honest, there's not a huge difference aside from obvious snappiness.

tl;dr - The shine has come off smartphones outside the tech community, and that's fine. Apple, Samsung, etc, don't make their big profits from people who hang on sites like this. It's the average consumer who are happy with consistency and not a "innovation for innovation's" sake mentality.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

haydn!

36 months ago

All iPhone 15 would have much better sales if they were assembled fully by China. I saw many pictures in October/November showing issues with phones assembled in India. Scratches out of the box etc. I’m not surprised that sales of 15 is not better.

Remember this is 2023 full year sales slide. So, the iPhone 13-14 had a full 12 months of sales and the iPhone 15 just 3 months. When you take that into consideration, iPhone 15 sales are very strong in comparison to their old counterparts.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)