IDC confirms: Apple was king of the smartphone market in 2023, overtaking Samsung

The last time Samsung wasn't No.1 in smartphone sales in any given year was all the way back in 2010. And yet it's finally happened again. Just like competing analyst house Canalys revealed a few hours ago , IDC is now out with its own report and confirming the once in more than a decade news: Apple took the crown away from Samsung in 2023.

According to IDC estimates, the Cupertino company shipped 234.6 million smartphones last year, for a market share of 20.1%, while Samsung only managed 226.6 million shipments taking 19.4% of the pie. In third was Xiaomi with 145.9 million units shipped and 12.5% market share, followed by Oppo with 103.1 million units shipped and 8.8% of the market, and Transsion with 94.9 million units shipped for an 8.1% share.

Compared to 2022, Apple's shipments grew by 3.7%, and Transsion's grew by a whopping 30.8%. In case you're wondering, Transsion is the company that owns Tecno and Infinix. On the other hand, Samsung's shipments fell by 13.6% year on year, Xiaomi's by 4.7%, and Oppo's by 9.9%.

If we look at the market in total, shipments fell 3.2% in 2023 compared to 2022. In the fourth quarter of 2023 (October to December), Apple was No.1 with 80.5 million shipments and a 24.7% market share, Samsung managed 53 million units shipped for 16.3% of the market, and Xiaomi shipped 40.7 million units and had 12.5% of the pie (coincidentally that's exactly the same percentage as for the full year).

However, Transsion was fourth with 28.2 million shipments and 8.6% market share, while in fifth came vivo with 24.1 million shipments and 7.5% market share. Overall the market grew in Q4 2023 by 8.5% compared to Q4 2022. Source.