Apple again the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer in terms of shipments

Apple is still the same Apple, holding on to the number one spot even as the mobile phone market continues to decline!

Market research firm Counter Point today released its mobile phone market figures for the fourth quarter of 2022, showing that the global smartphone market fell 19% year-on-year to 302.64 million units in the quarter.

Thanks to the strong performance of the iPhone 14 series, Apple bucked the trend in Q4 2022 with a 42% increase in shipments.

As a result, Apple overtook Samsung to become the world's largest smartphone vendor with a 23% global share.

However, it's also true that the fourth quarter is Apple's busiest time of the year, and four new iPhone launches have a significant impact on the market.

Samsung's shipments fell 16% y-o-y and 9% q-o-q to 58.3 million units, giving it a share of just 15% in the quarter.

It was followed by Xiaomi in third place with an 11% share, also the number one domestic brand.

The next three are also domestic manufacturers, namely OPPO, Vivo and Honor.

Of these, OPPO is the only manufacturer other than Apple to have seen a year-on-year increase, although not as bad as Apple's, with a 4% increase.

It's worth noting, however, that annual global smartphone shipments fell 12% to 1.2 billion units in 2022, the lowest level since 2013.

In this sense, the mobile phone industry is still facing a cold winter crisis with a chilling effect.