Apple still totally dominates the US smartphone market, Counterpoint Research’s latest quarterly market share report reveals. The Cupertino fruit company commanded 53% of the pie in the third quarter of this year (July to September), with Samsung a distant second at 23%.
In third was Lenovo, which owns Motorola let’s not forget – we assume most, if not all of that 14% share was actually Motorola’s. The next brand is, perhaps surprisingly, HMD, but it only managed a 1% market share. “Others” only account for 9%. We can’t think of a more polarized market than this, where one player has over half of the pie, and only two other brands actually matter.
As you can see from the image above, Apple’s market share has held steady for the past three quarters after a peak in Q4 of last year, and in Q2 and Q3 of 2023 it was also around the same point it is now. That is amazingly consistent performance, we have to say. On the other hand, Samsung dropped from a peak of 31% in Q1 2024, and Lenovo/Motorola had its best quarter of the past six in Q3 2024.
The overall market decreased 6% in Q3 compared to Q3 2023. Thus, Apple’s actual shipments (not market share) were down 5% year-on-year. Samsung’s shipments decreased 13% YoY, while Motorola went up 21% YoY “primarily due to an improved prepaid performance from the Moto G Play 2024”.