Apple Inc. became the world’s largest smartphone maker by unit shipments in 2023, according to preliminary International Data Corp. research published today.

The top spot in IDC’s handset sales ranking was held by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. for more than a decade. The last time the company didn’t nab first place was in 2010, when Nokia Corp. sold more smartphones. Apple was not yet among the industry’s top five handset makers.

Consumers bought a total of 1.16 billion smartphones in 2023, IDC estimates. That represents a year-over-year decline of 3.2%. The research firm attributes the lower demand to two main factors: macroeconomic challenges and the fact that the mobile industry had elevated inventory levels at the start of 2023.

Sales began to recover in the second half of the year. During the fourth quarter, worldwide smartphone shipments jumped 8.5% year-over-year, to 326.1 million units, topping the 7.3% growth that IDC had projected. “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 IDC research director Nabila Popal.

Apple’s iPhone shipments grew faster than the industry as a whole in the fourth quarter, climbing 11.6% year-over-year to 80.5 million units. The sales jump helped offset the lower demand the company experienced in the first half of the year. Apple sold a total of 234.6 million iPhones in 2023, according to IDC, which represents a 3.7% increase from 2022.

The increased demand was likely driven in significant part by the new iPhone 14 lineup that the company debuted last September. According to research firm Omdia, the flagship iPhone 14 Pro Max was the most popular smartphone of 2023. The $1,100 handset features a 6.7-inch display and Apple’s latest A16 Bionic chip, which contains 16 billion transistors.

Whereas the iPhone maker logged a sales jump in the fourth quarter of 2023, Samsung saw its shipments decline. The latter company sold 10.9% fewer smartphones than a year earlier. It shipped a total of 226.6 million devices during 2023, which represents a 13.7% drop from 2022.

The three next largest smartphone makers were Xiaomi Corp., Oppo and Transsion Holdings Co. Ltd. They sold a combined 343.9 million devices, accounting for nearly a third of worldwide shipments. The industry’s other handset makers, in turn, shipped just over 360 million units.

“The overall shift in ranking at the top of the market further highlights the intensity of competition within the smartphone market,” said IDC Group Vice President Ryan Reith. “Apple certainly played a part in Samsung’s drop in rank, but the overall Android space is diversifying within itself.”

Photo: Unsplash