Federica Laricchia
Research expert covering the global consumer technology industry
Smartphones - statistics & facts
Always in our pockets or in our hands, today it is almost impossible to imagine a life without smartphones. With the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in 2007, smartphones – mobile phones with more advanced computing capabilities and connectivity – revolutionized the mobile device industry. Manufacturers have quickly followed, offering consumers a wide range of smartphone brands and models. However, recent years have witnessed a stagnation of the smartphone market, with vendors trying to innovate it with new devices, including foldables and AI smartphones.
Smartphones: a rapid integration with everyday life
The smartphone industry has been steadily developing and growing since 2008, both in market size and in number of models and vendors. Smartphone shipments worldwide added up to over one billion units in 2023, declining from the past couple of years. By the end of 2023, almost 70 percent of the world’s population were smartphone users. However, given that many people use more than one smartphone, the actual number of smartphone subscriptions exceeds the number of smartphone users. In 2023, smartphone owners used an estimated seven billion smartphone subscriptions, which is expected to climb to almost eight billion by 2028.Apple and Samsung lead a competitive field
In early 2024, Samsung was the leading smartphone vendor worldwide. Samsung and Apple tend to swap places at the top of the smartphone market, with Apple smartphone sales typically peaking in the last quarter of the year. The back and forth between Apple and Samsung is typical at the top end of the market, but the fight for the remaining places among the top five vendors is hotly contested. Huawei once had a solid hold on this position, even leading the market for a brief period, but the trade restrictions have taken a heavy toll on the Chinese smartphone manufacturer. Other Chinese firms like Xiaomi have filled the gap left by Huawei’s decline.Ongoing dominance is never guaranteed
While the market has two fairly consistent leaders, until early 2011, Nokia led the global smartphone market, controlling around one quarter of the industry. Nokia’s decline shows the importance of keeping up with the development curve in an industry at the forefront of tech innovation, what today’s key players will have to do to stay ahead of this competitive market, preparing for the next smartphone generation.
