Apple overtakes Samsung ad world's top smartphone seller

Apple has overtaken Samsung to become the world's top selling brand, after commanding a 20% market share in 2023, according to a report from International Data Corp.

Samsung ended the year with a 19.4% share, followed by China's Xiaomi (1810.HK), opens new tab, Oppo and Transsion, preliminary data from IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker showed.

The change in ranking comes after a tough year that saw consumers going slow on smartphone upgrades and choosing cheaper handsets due to high inflation and economic uncertainties.

A slower-than-expected recovery in China, the world's largest smartphone market, also weighed on overall phone sales.

Apple and Transsion, which sells Tecno, Infinix and itel brands, were the only two of the top five smartphone vendors to record sales growth last year, even though the overall market declined 3.2% to 1.17 billion units and hit a decade low.

"While we saw some strong growth from low-end Android players like Transsion and Xiaomi in the second half of 2023, stemming from rapid growth in emerging markets, the biggest winner is clearly Apple," said Nabila Popal, research director at IDC's Worldwide Tracker team.

Phone shipments from Samsung were down 13.6%, while iPhone shipments were up 3.7% last year, according to IDC data.