Thanks to the February launch of the Galaxy S23 series, Samsung has managed to reclaim the top spot in the global smartphone market. The Galaxy S23 series took the tech world by storm after its release, thanks to its minimal design, better hardware and software combo, and excellent camera performance.
According to the market research firm Counterpoint Research (via Business Korea), Samsung grabbed 21.1% of the global market share in February 2023, an increase of 3.5 percentage points from the previous month. On the other hand, Apple posted a market share of 20.2%, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points from the previous month, allowing Samsung to reclaim the top spot in the global smartphone market. The two smartphone giants were followed by their Chinese counterparts, Xiaomi (11.5%), OPPO (8.9%), and Vivo (8.2%).
However, these numbers vary from another report that claims Apple is still on the top. albeit marginally. And such things can happen as different market research firms follow different approaches while estimating sales figures.
China's reopening wasn't that fruitful for the global smartphone sales health
The total global smartphone sales in February stood at 89.57 million units, which is down by 10 percentage points from the previous month. Comparing this to the same time in 2022, the numbers are down by 15 percentage points. China's reopening, which was highly anticipated by the smartphone market, wasn't that amazing.
In the second month of 2023, 21.39 million smartphones were sold in the Chinese market. This is down 10% from the previous year and 28% from the previous month. Speaking of the US, 9.43 million smartphones were sold in February, which is a drop of 6% from January. Europe posted 12.27 million smartphone sales, a drop of 2% from January. One of the biggest smartphone markets in the world, India, witnessed 10.8 million smartphones being sold, resulting in a 4% month-on-month drop.
