Global smartphone shipments in 2023 decreased by 3.2% to 1.17 billion units compared to 2022. A year earlier, this figure reached more than 1.2 billion units. This is evidenced by the data of International Data Corporation (IDC).

This is the lowest annual figure in the past ten years, largely due to macroeconomic problems and high inventories at the beginning of the year.

However, the growth in the second half of the year reinforced the expected recovery in 2024. In the fourth quarter of last year, global smartphone shipments totaled 326.1 million units. This is an 8.5% increase compared to the last quarter of 2022, when shipments amounted to 300.6 million units.

“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,” IDC noted.

It also added that Apple is not only the only player in the top three that shows positive growth every year, but for the first time in its history, the company took first place in terms of the number of smartphones shipped.

In 2023, Apple shipped 234.6 million smartphones (20.1% market share). Samsung took the second position with 226.6 million (19.4%), and Xiaomi was in third place with 145.9 million (12.5%). It is worth noting that IDC counts not actual sales to the end consumer, but shipment of products to the sales channel.