Best Second Quarter Share for Apple in Ten Years

Global smartphone shipments fell 7% to 291 million units in the second quarter of 2022, according to Strategy Analytics. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of annual decline in smartphone volumes.

Samsung topped the global smartphone market with a healthy 22% share. Apple ranked second place with a 16% share, the highest second quarter performance over the past ten years. Xiaomi, OPPO (including OnePlus), and vivo stayed in the top five list.

“COVID disruption and geopolitical issues adversely impacted the smartphone market in the second quarter of this year. Meanwhile, unfavorable economic conditions continued to weaken consumers’ demand for smartphones and other non-essential products,“ said Linda Sui, Senior Director at Strategy Analytics.

Samsung shipped 63 million smartphones and topped the global smartphone market with a 22% share. Apple shipped 48 million iPhones worldwide, up 3% YoY, for a 16% global market share in Q2 2022. This is the highest second-quarter market share for Apple over the past ten years, at the expense of leading Chinese brands who are hampered by sluggish performance in both home and overseas markets.

Xiaomi shipped 40 million smartphones and took third place with a 14% share, down from 17% a year ago. OPPO (OnePlus) held the fourth spot and captured a 10% share. vivo stayed fifth with 9%. OPPO and Vivo both lost ground in most markets, as 5G competition from Honor and other smartphone competitors intensified sharply in China and other markets.

Transsion, Honor, Lenovo-Motorola, and Huawei all outperformed the overall market but delivered different patterns. Transsion regained the leading position from Samsung in the Africa region this quarter. Honor held firmly in China being the largest vendor for the first time and continued to ramp up in overseas markets.

Lenovo-Motorola stabilized its performance in the Americas region and made progress in Europe and the Asia Pacific. Realme stayed in the top ten list but delivered a mixed performance and lost ground in China, Latin America, Central Eastern Europe, and the Africa Middle East region.

“We forecast global smartphone shipments to contract 7% to 8% in full-year 2022. Geopolitical issues, economic downturn, price inflation, exchange rate volatility, and Covid disruption will continue to weigh on the smartphone market during the second half of 2022. All these headwinds would continue through the first half of next year before the situation eases,“ concluded Sui.