The top 7 bestselling phones of 2023 were all … you guessed it

By Trevor Mogg February 21, 2024

Seven of the top 10 bestselling handsets in 2023 were iPhones, according to data from research firm Counterpoint.

This marks the first time in Counterpoint’s tracking of such data that Apple’s handset has dominated the chart to this extent.

The research revealed the iPhone 14 to be the biggest seller, with 3.9% of all smartphone sales last year. The iPhone 14 Pro Max took the second spot, while the iPhone 14 Pro appeared in third place. The older iPhone 13 placed fourth.

The iPhone 15 handsets showed up in fifth, sixth, and seventh spots, lower down the chart mainly because the devices launched in the fall and so had less time to achieve high sales numbers. However, Counterpoint noted that the iPhone 15 Pro Max was the bestselling smartphone of the fourth quarter last year.

Apple’s budget phone, the iPhone SE2, failed to make it into the top 10 after appearing in the ninth spot a year earlier.

The first non-Apple phone to appear on Counterpoint’s top 10 chart is Samsung’s Galaxy A14 5G in eighth place, followed by the Galaxy A04e, and the Galaxy A14 4G. No, these are not flagship devices, but their affordable price tags have evidently helped Samsung to ship huge numbers of them in the global market.

The combined market share of the top 10 handsets in 2023 reached the highest total ever at 20%, up from 19% in the previous year.

Top 10 best-selling phones of 2023. — Counterpoint

“Apple, for the first time, captured the top seven positions in the global list of bestselling smartphones in 2023,” Counterpoint said, citing data from its Global Monthly Handset Model Sales Tracker. “Samsung secured the remaining three places in the list, marking an increase of one spot from the 2022 list.”

It added that no other brands have appeared in its top 10 chart since 2021.

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