Is Samsung or iPhone more popular is probably the most heated debate for pretty much everyone who owns a smartphone these days. And that’s pretty much everyone. There are different things we can look at and compare when trying to determine which is more popular, but first we’ll have to specify what we’re talking about when we say Samsung and iPhone.
As you probably know, Samsung is a large South Korean electronics company that produces not only smartphones and smart tech devices, but also refrigerators, air conditioners and what not. Not to mention that the company has other departments that deal in fine chemicals, insurance and many more. Whereas, iPhone refers to one particular smartphone brand, produced by Apple.
It’s actually Samsung Galaxy vs iPhone
So, when we say is Samsung or iPhone more popular, we are actually discussing how Samsung’s smartphone models do against Apple’s iPhone, but even that’s not narrow enough. Namely, Samsung produces a line of smartphones, including low-end, cheaper phones, as well as more expensive state-of-the-art models, most notably the Samsung Galaxy. When we’re comparing a Samsung against iPhone, we are comparing Samsung Galaxy against the iPhone, i.e. the respective versions that were released roughly at the same time. Samsung released few more models of the Galaxy over the same period of time, but generally in most cases there are two models that overlap.
Samsung outperforms Apple globally
Let’s get straight to the numbers. Samsung has been selling more phones globally, over the past few years. In fact, even Huawei was ahead of Apple. Again, Huawei sells a number of smartphone models, including very affordable simpler models, as well as high-end tech superior models that might very well compete against the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy.
The Samsung’s market share throughout 2018 and 2019 was at or about 20%, as opposed to Apple’s share which fluctuated between 11% and 18%, depending on the quarter. Even Huawei sold more phones than Apple during most of the quarters in the mentioned period.
Still we, need to keep in mind the thing we mentioned above, namely, Apple only sells the iPhone, whereas both Huawei and Samsung have other models. However, something interesting happened in the fourth quarter of 2019. Namely, Apple beat Samsung and became the largest smartphone seller, after they shipped only slightly less than 73 million iPhones, whereas Samsung sold about 70 million Galaxy phones. Despite the fact that Samsung sold more smartphones annually, the last quarter was a testament of Apple’s determination to assert its dominance on the global stage.
The iPhone dominates the US market
If we look at the US alone, the situation is quite reverse. The iPhone is the undoubtedly most popular smartphone, outperforming the Galaxy by a wide margin. A quick through the figures will immediately demonstrate this.
In the past four years, there was only one quarter when the two companies were matched, Apple dominated, often selling more than twice as many phones as Samsung. Just one piece of information will be a clear illustration of the situation in the US. Namely, about 45% of all smartphones that are currently in use are iPhones. That settles the question is Samsung or iPhone more popular in the US.