Apple iPhone Sales Declined for First Time Last Quarter

Apple suffered its first-ever refuse in smartphone sales during the fourth quarter of 2022, according to new figures from Gartner.

Apple iPhone sales were down 4.four percentage during the concluding three months of the year compared to the same time period final year (71.5 million iPhones sold versus 74.viii million). Samsung and Huawei were the only top-five smartphone vendors to increase their sales to terminate users during the period.

Overall, smartphone vendors around the world peddled 403 million handsets to cease users in the quaternary quarter, a 9.7 percentage increase over the same menstruation in 2022, simply their slowest growth rate since 2008.

Samsung led the pack with 20.vii pct market place share, up from xix.ix percent a yr earlier, while No. 2 Apple lost market share, grabbing 17.7 percent concluding quarter compared to 20.4 percent the year before. While it's all the same the clear market leader, Samsung faces some challenges, according to Gartner Inquiry Director Anshul Gupta.

"For Samsung to terminate falling sales of premium smartphones, it needs to innovate new flagship smartphones that tin compete with iPhones and stop the churn to iOS devices," Gupta said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Huawei came in tertiary for the quarter, increasing its share to 8 percent (from 5.7 percentage in Q4 2022), followed by Lenovo at 5 percent, and China's Xiaomi at 4.5 pct.

In 2022 as a whole, smartphone sales reached 1.four billion units, an increment of 14.iv pct from 2022.

"Low-cost smartphones in emerging markets, and stiff need for premium smartphones, continued to be the driving factors," Gupta said. "An aggressive pricing from local and Chinese brands in the midrange and entry-level segments of emerging markets led to consumers upgrading more quickly to affordable smartphones."

He added that 85 percent of users in the emerging Asia/Pacific market place are replacing their current midrange phone with the same type of device.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.

About Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo is PCMag'southward practiced on fettle and smart home products. Teaching yoga for virtually 10 years has helped her in evaluating a range of connected health products including fettle trackers, middle rate monitors, rowers, smart scales, stationary bikes, strength training machines, treadmills, and more. Angela also tests smart dwelling devices from her ranch in Florida, including air purifiers, kitchen appliances, and robot vacuums, only to name a few.