What you need to know
- Smartphone sales saw overall growth of 4% year-on-year after a decline over the past two years.
- While Samsung and Apple continue to maintain their positions in the top five, first and second places, their overall sales have fallen.
- Xiaomi has become the fastest growing smartphone brand due to its portfolio realignment and aggressive expansion.
- Huawei, HONOR and Motorola were ranked among the fastest growing OEMs among the top 10 brands.
Smartphone sales have finally exploded after two years of decline. According to a recent report According to Counterpoint, smartphone sales increased by 4% year-on-year (33%) in 2024 compared to the previous year.
As for what caused this sudden change in the numbers, Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research, contributed to overall economic growth in Europe, China and Latin America, meaning more people can afford to buy new phones.
“The smartphone market started showing signs of recovery from the fourth quarter of 2023 and has now been growing for five consecutive quarters,” Pathak added in the report.
Xiaomi, although it came third, became the fastest growing smartphone brand among the top five in 2024, with an overall growth of 12% from the previous year. The report said this growth was solely due to the company’s “portfolio realignment, increased premiums and aggressive expansion activities.”
As for Samsung, the company experienced a 1% decline in overall sales but continued to dominate (19% of overall sales) the market in 2024. Samsung was able to stay at the top, thanks to the growing demand for its series S24, especially in the United States and Western Europe. This is partly because the S24 was the company’s first flagship to feature Galaxy AI, bringing a host of new features, helping it “outperform its predecessors.” It remains to be seen how much the Galaxy S25 series could boost Samsung’s sales this year.
Apple is in second place, with 18% of the share coming from Apple’s iPhone 16 series. The report further adds that this series received mixed reactions due to Apple’s lack of intelligence during the launch. Still, it saw enough growth in non-core markets like Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific to hold the second spot.
OPPO took fourth place, down 8% year-on-year, and Vivo, although it took fifth place, ended the year on a high note as the top-ranked OEM in India and in China. Huawei, HONOR and Motorola were ranked among the fastest growing OEMs among the top 10 brands.
Last year also saw the deployment of more generative AI (Gen AI) in smartphones, limited mainly to high-end phones. However, Counterpoint Research predicts that by 2028, nine out of ten smartphones over $250 (mid-range) will feature the AI generation.
As for what the market might look like in 2025, the report says that while the numbers will likely never match pre-pandemic numbers, “revenue growth is expected to continue to outpace volume growth, with growth in revenues of 8% over one year, compared to volume growth of 4%.” “
