Despite stiff competition from a ton of different Android brands and manufacturers, it seems that Apple’s grip on the smartphone market has more or less remained consistent, especially in recent times. Data from statistics firm Counterpoint Research shows that the Cupertino-based manufacturer continues to top sales charts in key markets, including the United States and United Kingdom.
More specifically, Apple managed to grab spots in the top five sales rankings, and given the general popularity of iOS with a lot of smartphone buyers, this is somewhat unsurprising. For full disclosure, the data presented by Counterpoint consists of sales made during October 2023 – let’s take a look.
Born in the USA
Given the popularity of Apple devices in North America, it is a bit expected that Apple’s more recent models managed to sell well. For example, the number one in terms of sales (at least this October) was the iPhone 15 Pro Max with 24% share, which is Apple’s latest top-of-the-line flagship model. Following this is the iPhone 15 Pro at 16%, the base model iPhone 15 at 13%, and last year’s base model iPhone 14 at 4%. There’s little doubt that the surge of Black Friday offers likewise played a part in strong iPhone sales for October, given the timeliness of Apple’s product launches.
Surprisingly, the fifth spot went to the Galaxy A14 5G with 3% share, one of Samsung’s more affordable budget handsets. While Samsung flagship devices such as the S23 series are no doubt impressive smartphones, a majority of the South Korean tech giant’s sales still come from its entry-level models, which are more accessible to more consumers worldwide.
Across the Pond
In the United Kingdom, Apple has seen a bit more consistency in the top-five charts for October 2023 – the top spot once again goes to the Apple iPhone 15 Pro this time with 11% share, followed by the iPhone 15 Pro at 10%, iPhone 15 at 9%, iPhone 14 Pro also at 9%, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max in fifth place, with 8% share. No Android brands were able to secure a spot in the top five places during this period, at least in the UK.
In the Spotlight
The success of the iPhone 15 series has somewhat overshadowed its rocky launch back in September. Following its debut in store shelves, a number of users complained about overheating – in particular, owners of the iPhone 15 Pro Max (the most expensive in Apple’s 2023 lineup) reported heating issues with their devices, so much so that we even tried checking out how hot our iPhone 15 Pro Max got. This was followed by complaints about screen burn-in, particularly with the Pro and Pro Max models.
With that being said though, Apple has since issued software updates and replacements to users affected by the issues, and it’s obvious that these did little to deter would-be buyers from getting their hands on this year’s latest iPhones, at least according to the current data at hand. You can check out Counterpoint Research’s full report here.
