Samsung continues to dominate the Android smartphone market

Midway through this year, Samsung reached its highest market share in the Android phone segment in 5 years, helped by strong sales of the Galaxy S22 series. Continuing in the same vein, Samsung achieved 34.6% of global Android phone sales last month.

After a growth spurt that emerged at the start of the COVID pandemic, smartphone sales plummeted in the second half of 2020, only to rebound spectacularly in 2021. In 2022, the growth trend was somewhat more nuanced, with only top brands such as Apple and Samsung managing to gain traction in the increasingly recession-hit global economy.

Basically, we’re dealing with a not-so-healthy consolidation of the smartphone market, almost exclusively around established brands. Instead, lesser-known manufacturers are being pushed closer and closer to the edge of the cliff, once by the price of components and the difficulty of access to suppliers, and then by the reluctance of buyers. Although still present in large numbers, consumers interested in smartphones have become much more discerning when it comes to selecting the product they want, and much less willing to “gamble” their hard-earned cash on one of the lesser-known brands.

Helped by very good sales with both the top-selling Galaxy S series, but especially the affordable Galaxy A offering, Samsung now has 34.6% of the global Android phone market, well behind its main rival, Xiaomi. Although it is much better received in the local Chinese market, Xiaomi has managed to grab just 14.3% market share. In third place is also a Chinese company, with Oppo holding a 10.3% market share globally, followed by Vivo with 9.8% and Huawei with 6.7%.

Interestingly, Apple’s main rival has 28% of the global smartphone market, while it’s a single company with a single smartphone brand. Despite the huge number of large and small manufacturers contributing to this ecosystem, Android has lost 1.8% market share in the last 5 years. Apple has increased its market share by 8% in the same timeframe, benefiting from the demise of alternative platforms like Windows Phone.