14 DAY TRIAL // New data provided by Canalys reveals that Apple sold a total of 14.6 million iPhones in the first quarter of 2019, securing a market share of 40.0 percent.
Despite these figures revealing a 19 percent drop in year-over-year shipments for the Cupertino-based tech giant, Apple’s performance comes at a time when the entire smartphone market fell 18 percent to total 36.4 million units.
Apple’s market share in the first quarter of 2018 was 40.3 percent.
Samsung continues to be the runner-up thanks to an increase of 3 percent, having shipped 10.7 million smartphones in Q1 2019. This means the South Korean firm has a 29.3 percent market share.
LG is third despite a 24 percent drop thanks to 4.8 million units sold during the quarter, followed by Lenovo and TCL, which posted increases of 42 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
iPhone XR, the best-selling model
Canalys says in terms of iPhones, it’s the iPhone XR the one that impressed, together with older models, which benefited from major discounts.
“Apple’s fall in Q1 followed particularly high shipments of flagship iPhones in the previous quarter, but there was a disconnect between channel orders and consumer demand, which then caused early shipments in Q1 to be challenging for Apple,” Canalys Research analyst Vincent Thielke said.
“Moving into March, we did see an uptick in iPhone XR shipments, an early sign that these challenges may be starting to ease at home. Apple has shown how vital trade-ins have become by moving the mechanism to the front and center of its ordering process, and it now frequently uses the net price in its flagship iPhone marketing.”
Out of total iPhone sales, Canalys says the iPhone XR accounts for 4.5 million units, mostly as a result of Apple insisting more for its trade-in program.