The analyst firm Canalys has said that the global smartphone market saw 8% year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2023. Shipments reached 319.5 million units during the quarter and Canalys believes that this is a sign of stability and the beginning of a recovery.
The total shipments for the year reached 1.14 billion, representing a decline of 4% compared to 2022. The company in the market was Apple which held 20% of the market share or 229.2 million shipments in 2023.
Samsung was in second place with 225.4 million shipments (20%), Xiaomi came in third with 146.4 million units (13%), and OPPO and Transsion landed in fourth and fifth place with 9% and 8% of the market share respectively.
Transsion is a little bit of a mystery for some people as it doesn’t stick this name on the phones it sells. Instead, you may have heard of Tecno, Infinix, and Itel - all of these brands are owned by Transsion and are pretty popular in some countries around the world for their lower prices.
Commenting on the findings, Sanyam Chaurasia, Senior Analyst at Canalys, said:
“The recovery in emerging markets led to a rebound in the second half of 2023, narrowing the decline. Benefiting from additional strategic focus and resources from vendors who launched a slew of mass-market models, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East showed strong recovery momentum from Q3 2023 onward.
Meanwhile, as macroeconomic conditions improved in the APAC region, consumer demand significantly increased toward the end of the year. TRANSSION and Xiaomi have benefited from these strong mass-market rebounds, achieving remarkable year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter.
However, mature markets, including Mainland China, Europe and North America, still face strong headwinds due to subdued consumer spending and reduced channel investments. In 2024, emerging markets will remain a strategic battleground for most smartphone vendors seeking growth.”
One of the driving factors of device upgrades over the next two years or so could be offline AI processing capabilities. Thanks to the slew of AI-related services being delivered by many companies, phone manufacturers are keen to enable on-device AI processing and this could drive shipments if consumers are interested in this functionality.
Source: Canalys