The last time a company not named Samsung was at the top of the smartphone market was 2010. Now it is Apple.

Smartphone shipments declined 3.2% year over year to 1.17 billion units in 2023, says IDC.

While this marks the lowest full-year volume in a decade,  growth in the second half of the year has cemented the expected recovery for 2024.

Q4  saw 8.5% y-o-y growth and 326.1 million units shipped.

“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,” says IDC’s Nabila Popal, “not only is Apple the only player in the Top 3 to show positive growth annually, but also bags the number 1 spot annually for the first time ever. Apple’s ongoing success and resilience is in large part due to the increasing trend of premium devices, which now represent over 20% of the market, fuelled by aggressive trade-in offers and interest-free financing plans.”