The iPhone 17 Pro Max crushed all its brothers and rivals in global Q4 2025 sales. | Image by PhoneArena
If you've been keeping an eye on our website for the last few months, you might already know that Apple was crowned the world's top smartphone vendor in 2025, beating arch-rival Samsung by around 1 percent market share. That may not sound like a huge advantage, but there are certainly aspects of the mobile industry in which the global champion holds an even more impressive lead.
For instance, Counterpoint Research placed no less than seven iPhone models among the ten best-selling handsets of last year back in January (including the first four), and now the same analytics firm ranks the iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17, 17 Pro, and iPhone 16 ahead of all other smartphones in the Q4 2025 sales chart.
The leader has a 5 percent share
If it doesn't sound impressive to you that the iPhone 17 Pro Max apparently accounted for 5 percent of all smartphone sales registered around the world between October and December 2025, you might need to take a step back and think about the sheer number of different models that are currently available in markets as diverse as the US, China, and India.
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Five iPhones, four Samsungs, and one Xiaomi are among the ten best-selling smartphones of Q4 2025. | Image by Counterpoint Research
Now make sure you understand exactly what a 5 percent share means in this type of report. Yes, it means that one in every 20 smartphones sold worldwide in Q4 was an iPhone 17 Pro Max, and perhaps even more remarkably, the iPhone 17 and the 17 Pro are not ranked that far behind the gold medalist either.
Did you buy a new phone in Q4 2025?
The Q1, Q2, and Q3 2025 champion, mind you, was the "vanilla" iPhone 16 with around 4 percent market share (every time), which obviously explains why the 2024-released 6.1-inch handset reigned supreme last year despite finishing in fourth place in Q4. The last time the top-selling mobile device held a 5 percent share was, you guessed it, in Q4 2024, when the iPhone 16 Pro Max won the trophy, so there's definitely a good chance the "vanilla" iPhone 17 will become 2026's number one seller instead of the 17 Pro Max.
The world's best-selling Android phone is... not the Galaxy S25 Ultra
Or the Galaxy S25. Or even the low-end Galaxy A16 5G that occupied the fifth spot in the full-year ranking, behind the iPhone 16, 16 Pro Max, 16 Pro, and 17 Pro Max. Instead, the mid-range Galaxy A56 climbed from eighth place in Q3 2025 to a top-five result during the final three months of the year, fending off the slightly humbler Galaxy A36, which moved up from seventh to sixth.
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The S25 Ultra was significantly more popular in Q2 2025 than Q4. | Image by Counterpoint Research
These are pretty great placements for Samsung's best mid-end devices, which seem to be growing in popularity again and overtaking lower-end and lower-cost models like the aforementioned Galaxy A16 and the even more modest Galaxy A07.
That's excellent news for the company's profit margins and overall financial health, although seeing the Galaxy A07 outsell all members of the Galaxy S25 family has to hurt. Somewhat surprisingly, the "regular" S25 makes the Q4 2025 top ten instead of the S25 Ultra, which was ranked seventh in Q1, eighth in Q2, and ninth for the entire year.
It's not all good news for Apple
This may sound absurd, but I kind of expected even stronger results from the Cupertino-based tech giant in the latest Counterpoint Research study. After all, there were no less than six different iPhone models ranked among the ten most popular smartphones in the world in Q4 2024, with that number dropping to only five at the end of 2025. And the iPhone 16e didn't exactly set the industry on fire with its sales performance between October and December of last year, slipping from sixth and fourth places in Q2 and Q3 2025, respectively, to number eight.
The iPhone 15 Pro was more successful in 2024 than the 16 Pro in 2025. | Image by Counterpoint Research
The iPhone 16 Pro was perhaps the company's biggest disappointment, failing to crack the top ten in Q4 2025 despite the 15 Pro ranking ninth in Q4 2024, behind the Galaxy A15 5G but ahead of the Galaxy A55.
That once again proves that the Galaxy A56 and A36 have probably exceeded Samsung's expectations, and the same goes for Xiaomi's initial hopes for the entry-level Redmi A5, which somehow managed to "infiltrate" the best-selling smartphone list of Q4 2025 and even eclipse the Galaxy S25 (and the S25 Ultra, of course).
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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