The latest quarterly smartphone market report for the US unsurprisingly places Apple well above Samsung in first place while highlighting Google’s excellent regional progress.
We all know the global smartphone market as a whole is struggling and has been struggling for quite some time now, as evidenced most recently by a Q2 2023 Canalys report estimating the industry’s latest quarterly decline at 10 percent compared to the same period from last year.Of course, some countries and regions are struggling significantly more than others, with Indian and Chinese shipments, for instance, only dropping by 1 and 5 percent respectively year-on-year during the last quarter and thus showing promising signs of a potential rebound on the horizon, unlike US sales numbers.In fairness, we don’t think smartphone manufacturers can be truly content with their Q2 2023 shipment figures and market share stateside. Not in a quarter when overall regional sales were down a massive 24 percent from Q2 2022, and not right after two other three-month periods of year-on-year regression.But Samsung and TCL must be exceptionally unhappy with their huge 37 and 69 percent declines respectively compared to the April — June timeframe of last year. After a seemingly very strong start at the local box-office that boosted its maker’s slice of the US sales pie from 20 percent in Q4 2022 to 27 percent in Q1 2023, the high-end Galaxy S23 series clearly fizzled, contributing to a worrying market share decrease to 23 percent for the world’s top handset vendor.
