Can you guess which smartphone was the most popular worldwide for 2019?
The most popular smartphone globally during 2019 was (drum roll please) the Apple iPhone XR according to Omdia (via AppleInsider). In second place was the iPhone XR's successor, the iPhone 11. Apple shipped 46.3 million iPhone XR units last year compared to the 37.3 million iPhone 11 models it delivered. The next three phones all belonged to Samsung's popular Galaxy A mid-range family; the third-place Galaxy A10, the fourth-place Galaxy A50 and the fifth-place Galaxy A20 shipped 30.3 million, 24.2 million and 19.2 million units respectively.
Apple and Samsung had nine of the top ten phones shipped globally last year
In sixth place last year was the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max. 17.6 million units of this model were delivered by Apple in 2019. That was enough to just barely beat out 2018's most popular phone, the iPhone 8, by 200,000 handsets. In 2018, the iPhone 8 topped the list with shipments of 31.5 million phones. We will return to the 2018 top ten, but first, we should reveal the eighth, ninth and tenth most popular handsets for 2019. That would be the Redmi Note 7 (16.4 million units shipped last year), the iPhone 11 Pro (15.5 million) and the Galaxy J2 Core (15.2 million).
The Apple iPhone XR was the most popular phone in the world last year
Apple and Samsung both dominated in 2018. After the iPhone 8's 32.5 million units shipped came the iPhone X and the iPhone 8 Plus with shipments of 27.5 million and 25.6 million respectively. The fourth most popular handset of 2018 was the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime with 25.2 million units delivered. In fifth place during 2018 was the next year's top seller, the iPhone XR, with shipments of 23.1 million phones.
Numbers six and seven in 2018 were the iPhone XS Max (21.3 million units shipped) and the Samsung Galaxy S9 (19.3 million shipped). The larger Galaxy S9+ was next as Samsung delivered 16.1 million of these phones in 2018. In ninth place during that year was Huawei's photo-centric P20 Lite followed by the iPhone XS. Those last two models shipped 16 million and 15.5 million units respectively.
Omdia says that 2019 saw the iPhone suffer declines in the number of units shipped for the second year in a row; last year's decline came to a drop of 4.6% year-over-year. That was a slight improvement from the 5.1% annual decline that the iPhone suffered through in 2018.
Jusy Hong, Omdia's smartphone research and analysis director said, "Apple has consistently owned the first and second positions in the global smartphone model shipment ranking, with the company maintaining this dominant position for more than five years running. By limiting the number of models it offers compared to its top competitors, Apple has been able to concentrate its sales on a few smartphones that have broad appeal, like the iPhone XR."
It also helped that when Apple introduced the iPhone XR's replacement last September, it cut the price of the 64GB version of the phone to $599. It also started the iPhone 11 at $699 for the 64GB model. That was $50 less than the $749 that Apple asked for the 64GB iPhone XR when the latter was first released on October 26th, 2018.
Samsung's Galaxy A mid-range series was a huge success for the company and this seemed to be quite apparent last May when the company announced that it had sold 5 million units of these phones generating revenue of more than $1 billion for the company after the first 70 days. Samsung says that the Galaxy A phones will all feature viable cameras and sport large capacity batteries. For example, the Galaxy A50 comes with a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display carrying a resolution of 1080 x 2340 and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. This phone offers 128GB of storage and a triple-camera setup on the back (25MP primary camera + 8MP ultra-wide camera and a 5MP depth sensor). A 4000mAh battery keeps the lights on. In the states, this phone can be purchased for $275.
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