The battle for supremacy in the global smartphone market was as tight as ever in Q3 2025, but ultimately, the winner is unsurprising.
The world’s top smartphone vendor in Q1 and Q2 2025 managed to retain its crown between July and September as well, according to the preliminary sales reports put together by not one but two of the industry’s biggest market research firms.
Samsung’s latest achievement is made that much more impressive by the smartphone market’s expansion in Q3 compared to the same timeframe of last year, as well as Apple’s recent iPhone 17 family launch, which didn’t come early enough in the quarter to cause a change at the top of the vendor hierarchy.
I’m not sure if you remember this now (which is why I’m bringing it up), but at the beginning of 2025, there was a little confusion as to what company won the global smartphone sales war last year. While the IDC (International Data Corporation) put Apple (narrowly) ahead of Samsung in 2024 worldwide shipments, Counterpoint Research had the order reversed in its full-year sell-through report.
This time around, things are a lot clearer, as the IDC (quoted by Reuters) and Omdia agree not just on the name of the Q3 2025 champ, but the tiny advantage held over the market’s silver medalist too.
We’re talking about a 19 to 18 percent market share win here, which perfectly matches the numbers and difference from Q3 2024. That apparently equates to 61.4 million units for Samsung and 58.6 million for Apple, and believe it or not, both scores are up from a year ago because the market as a whole is showing very promising signs of growth following two stagnant results in Q1 and Q2.
