Samsung regains its number one position from Apple in global smartphone sales

Samsung sold over 60 million smartphones in Q1 2024

In Q4 2023, Apple became the world's biggest smartphone brand in terms of unit sales. Samsung was pushed down to second place during that quarter. However, Samsung has returned strongly in Q1 2024, riding the wave of the successful Galaxy S24. According to market research firm IDC, it sold 60.1 million smartphones during the first quarter of this year. That's slightly lower than Samsung's 60.5 million sales from last year, marking a 0.7% drop compared to Q1 2023 figures.

Apple sold 50.1 million iPhones in Q1 2024, a 9.6% drop in sales compared to Q1 2023. It was the second-biggest smartphone brand in the first quarter of this year. According to previous reports, most of its sales drop might have come from China.

Xiaomi has also displayed a strong comeback, ranking third in the global smartphone market with sales of over 40.8 million smartphones during Q1 2024. That's a massive improvement of 33.8% compared to Q1 2023. However, what's even more impressive is Transsion's gigantic 84.9% sales jump to 28.5 million units during the same period. OPPO's sales dropped last quarter by 8.5%, and it sold 25.2 million smartphones globally.

Overall, 289.4 million smartphones were shipped globally in the first quarter of this year. That's a 7.8% rise in shipments compared to the muted sales figures from 2023's first quarter. Smartphone sales are increasing globally, and the recovery is underway compared to disastrous market conditions from last year.

Huawei has reportedly seen a strong comeback in China's domestic market. However, they will likely not be in the top five rankings anytime soon due to the US sanctions on the company.

Nabila Popal, Research Director of IDC's Worldwide Tracker team, said, “In contrast, while the Top 2 players (Samsung and Apple) both saw negative growth in the first quarter, it seems Samsung is in a stronger position overall than they were in recent quarters.”