It was a good year for smartphone sales, but Apple in particular took home all of the accolades with its iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 series performing so well across 2025.
The charts keep moving in an upward direction with the Q1 2026 earnings showing a record $143.8 billion in revenue. That was primarily driven by iPhone demand, which was high in spite of pundits' arguments about Apple's place in the AI race.
According to a report from Counterpoint Research, Apple's iPhone makes up one of every four smartphones on Earth. The smartphone market grew by 2% overall in 2025, and eight OEMs now have over 200 million users in their install base.
Samsung and Apple are the only ones with over one billion active smartphones. Apple leads the global active install base in spite of offering premium smartphones that start well above Samsung's most popular devices, which sell for around $200.
The two of them together held 44% of the global active install base in 2025. Premium segments were challenging though, as Apple and Samsung held single-digit sales share in the $600 and above category.
The promise of AI and the redesigned iPhone 17 Pro models helped push sales, plus there was the new entry iPhone 16e that helped widen the price range. Apple is expected to continue selling iPhones as fast as they can make them going into 2026 with up to six new models arriving in the next calendar year.
