Apple Inc’s iPhone dethroned Samsung Electronics Co devices to become the best-selling smartphone series last year, the first time South Korea’s largest company has lost the top spot since 2010.
The iPhone accounted for one-fifth of the global market with close to 235 million units last year, research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said.
Samsung, whose shipments slumped by a double-digit percentage to 226.6 million units, was second, ahead of Chinese device makers such as Xiaomi Corp (小米).
Photo: Reuters
While Apple has dominated the holiday quarter in recent years, its surge ahead of Samsung over a full year is unprecedented and suggests Apple is weathering an industry-wide slump better than rivals.
Apple benefited from aggressive offers that have enticed a shift toward premium devices. It expanded shipments last year despite a lukewarm reception late in the year for the iPhone 15 in China — its biggest international market — where Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) growing popularity and a widening ban on government use is depressing sales.
“While we saw some strong growth from low-end Android players like Transsion (傳音) and Xiaomi in the second half of 2023, stemming from rapid growth in emerging markets, the biggest winner is clearly Apple,” IDC research director Nabila Popal said. “All this despite facing increased regulatory challenges and renewed competition from Huawei in China, its largest market. Apple’s ongoing success and resilience is in large part due to the increasing trend of premium devices, which now represent over 20 percent of the market.”
The shift up the smartphone price chain has been driven in part by attractive trade-in offers and interest-free financing, IDC said.
Apple was the only player in the global top three to register growth, of 3.7 percent, but it has not been immune to the wider decline. Sales in China of the latest iPhone are significantly down from its predecessor, with some analyst expecting those drops to deepen.
Semiconductor business between Taiwan and the US is a “win-win” model for both sides given the high level of complementarity, the government said yesterday responding to tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp. Trump said on Monday he plans to impose tariffs on imported chips, pharmaceuticals and steel in an effort to get the producers to make them in the US. “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SMALL AND EFFICIENT: The Chinese AI app’s initial success has spurred worries in the US that its tech giants’ massive AI spending needs re-evaluation, a market strategist said Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek’s (深度求索) eponymous AI assistant rocketed to the top of Apple Inc’s iPhone download charts, stirring doubts in Silicon Valley about the strength of the US’ technological dominance. The app’s underlying AI model is widely seen as competitive with OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc’s latest. Its claim that it cost much less to train and develop triggered share moves across Asia’s supply chain. Chinese tech firms linked to DeepSeek, such as Iflytek Co (科大訊飛), surged yesterday, while chipmaking tool makers like Advantest Corp slumped on the potential threat to demand for Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators. US stock
SUBSIDIES: The nominee for commerce secretary indicated the Trump administration wants to put its stamp on the plan, but not unravel it entirely US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency in charge of a US$52 billion semiconductor subsidy program declined to give it unqualified support, raising questions about the disbursement of funds to companies like Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). “I can’t say that I can honor something I haven’t read,” Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said of the binding CHIPS and Science Act awards in a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “To the extent monies have been disbursed, I would commit to rigorously enforcing documents that have been signed by those companies to make sure we get
RSS