iPhone Outsells Samsung

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 25, 6:45AM EDT · Published Mar 23, 6:02AM EDT

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iPhone Outsells Samsung — © 2022 Getty Images / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Despite the growth of homegrown smartphone companies in China, the actual global race in the sector has been between Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and South Korea’s Samsung.

Samsung is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer. It also makes batteries, displays, and chips. The parent company, Samsung Electronics, had revenue of $198 billion last year. Based on its market cap, Samsung is the largest corporation in South Korea.

Counted by the sale of individual models, according to a new CounterPoint study, among the top 10 best-selling smartphones, “Apple and Samsung captured all the spots with 5 entries each.” The figures cover the fourth quarter of 2023.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max is the most popular model, with a 5% share of global sales in the period measured. It is followed by the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 14. This exemplifies how Apple continues to do well with older-generation phones. (Here are five reasons to avoid Apple products today.)

The best-selling model in Samsung’s lineup is the A54. Its primary features are its 6.4-inch screen and 5,000 mAh battery, which Samsung says is among the fastest charging systems in the world.

Despite the success of the iPhone 15, the new Counterpoint study tells a slightly different story than other information on iPhone sales. Early measures of China’s smartphone activity in the first several weeks of 2024 show iPhone sales plunged by double digits from the year before. China is the world’s largest smartphone market, so sales there are critical to Apple.

Apple’s future, now undermined by antitrust suits and the lack of an AI-based product, rides to a large extent on the success of the iPhone 16, which is likely to be released in September. Any weakness in its sales will give investors another reason to dump Apple’s stock, which is already down 10% this year, while the broader market is up 10%.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.