Global Smartphone Market Sees Nine Consecutive Quarters of Decline

The global smartphone market is going down for the ninth quarter in a row, which means that people aren’t buying as many smartphones as before. In the third quarter of 2023, there were 8% fewer smartphones shipped. But, here’s the good news, there was a small 2% increase compared to the previous quarter.

The Whole Global Smartphone Market Scenario

Samsung held onto its top spot in the global market with 20% of all smartphone sales in Q3. They came out with new foldable phones, and their more affordable A-series phones were popular in the mid-price range. Apple came in second place with 16% of the market, even though their new iPhone 15 series wasn’t widely available. Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo made up the rest of the top five smartphone makers, but all of them sold fewer phones compared to the previous year.

In the third quarter, most companies focused on making their presence stronger in countries like India and China while lowering the efforts to sell more phones in other parts of the world. Some companies like Honor, Huawei, and Transsion Holdings managed to sell more phones and grow compared to the previous year. Huawei’s growth was because they launched the Mate 60 series in China, while Honor did well in other countries. Transsion Holdings did well in the Middle East and Africa markets, which was the only region where smartphone sales went up this quarter.

On the other hand, countries in North America, Western Europe, and South Korea bought fewer phones. Meanwhile, the report says that these countries could see more people buying smartphones in the fourth quarter, mainly because of the delay of the new iPhone.

Counterpoint Research expects the positive trend to continue until the end of the year, especially with the new iPhone 15 series, the festive season in India, the 11.11 sales event in China, and Christmas sales in different regions. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Counterpoint predicts that smartphone sales will stop going down compared to the previous year.

However, for the whole year of 2023, Counterpoint Research thinks that the smartphone market will shrink, reaching its lowest point in the past 10 years. This change might be because people are now holding onto their phones for longer before getting new ones.