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It's certainly no secret that the global smartphone market has been struggling for a number of years now, and despite Samsung and Apple's best efforts and small recent signs of recovery in a few key regions, the latest quarterly figures are... not great either.
Depending on who you ask or rather who you choose to listen to, these are either poor or really poor, marking a year-on-year decline of 8 or 11 percent in total Q2 sales and reflecting losses across the board for all of the world's top five vendors, as well as the "others" category.
Apple still can't touch Samsung
Because these are not Q4 reports, which the Cupertino-based tech giant has historically dominated, you should definitely not be surprised to see Samsung hold a pretty solid lead over its arch-rival in first place in both the latest Counterpoint Research and Canalys studies.
This advantage is considerably larger than the one posted at the beginning of the year but slightly smaller than Samsung's edge back in Q2 2022, at least according to Counterpoint Research analysts. We're talking either 5 or 4 percentage points over Apple in market share, which is either down from 6 or unchanged compared to the April - June timeframe of last year.
What's crystal clear and not subject to fluctuations or differences caused by the methodology used by the two firms is that Samsung rules and Apple drools follows relatively close behind, with the same order likely to be found in reports covering the year as a whole soon.
That's because Samsung always leads in Q3 sales as well, and while Applealways moves into first place in Q4, its holiday advantage is unlikely to be sufficient to offset the deficit of the other three quarters.
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What's certainly worth mentioning is that Apple's 2 percent dip in Q2 sales is a lot smaller than Samsung's 12 percent decline from its own numbers reported during last year's second calendar quarter, which strongly suggests that the Galaxy S23 family is not exactly doing great business.
The S23 trio is in fact not mentioned once in these new reports, with Galaxy A-series mid-rangers instead cited as responsible for "healthy" demand keeping the company ahead of the competition.
A weak rest of the pack and a so-so outlook
While Counterpoint Research and Canalys don't fully agree on Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo's market share figures, scoring the bronze medalist with 12 and 13 percent respectively, the order outside of the top two is also pretty clear. And the evolution of these brands is not very positive either.
Like Apple, however, Oppo is seeing a much smaller decline than Xiaomi, Vivo, and Samsung, helped largely by its performance in China and that of subsidiary OnePlus in India. At the end of the day, none of these three companies seems like a very serious threat for Samsung and Apple going forward, especially with the premium market segment looking best positioned for future growth.
That's mainly Apple's territory, of course, although all of the "big five" brands have actually shown recent progress as far as $600+ phones are concerned and their roles in their respective product portfolios.
Speaking of territories, the biggest sales declines continue to be registered in "relatively more developed" markets like the US, Western Europe, and Japan, while China, India, and the Middle East & Africa region are holding on more steadily.
Looking towards the future, analysts remain optimistic that the worst is behind smartphone vendors of all ranks and statuses and that the industry as a whole is set to recover "slowly in the coming quarters." That being said, a return to pre-pandemic form seems more or less utopian, and the best the market can probably hope for in the short to mid-term is to hit a stagnation point of sorts and stop contracting.
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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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