Despite falling short of its sales target, Samsung may remain the world’s largest smartphone company in 2023. According to the Korean media, the company is on track to ship over 220 million Galaxy smartphones this year, 50 million fewer than its original target. Shipments of its closest rival Apple may not exceed 210 million units, giving Samsung a narrow victory.
Samsung to retain title of world’s largest smartphone company
Samsung has led annual smartphone sales charts for the past several years. Many companies came close but couldn’t dethrone the Korean firm from the top spot. It hasn’t enjoyed the same success in the market this year as it did in the past but Samsung may still come out at the top. The company reportedly sold 60 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2023, 53 million in the second quarter, and 59 million in the third quarter.
The shipment figures add up to 172 million in the first three quarters of the year. Samsung’s smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter are usually lower than in the third quarter and it will be no different this year. However, even if it ships around 50 million smartphones in the final three months of 2023, it will end up with an annual sales volume of more than 220 million. With 59 million shipments in Q4, the total will cross 230 million.
Apple, which launched the iPhone 15 series in September, will top the chart for the fourth quarter. However, for the full year, its total iPhone shipments may not reach Samsung’s Galaxy shipment volume. The company is expected to sell 200-210 million iPhones this year, The Elec reports. The report doesn’t talk about the shipments of Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, the other three largest smartphone companies.
Samsung fails to achieve its sales target
Samsung may come out on top of the annual smartphone sales chart for another year but it’s failing to achieve its target this year. Back in October 2022, the Korean media reported that the company is expecting to sell around 270 million smartphones in 2023. Overall production volume was reported to cross 290 million.
However, it’s falling short of that target by a huge margin. With 220 million shipments, 2023 may be the worst year for Samsung’s smartphone division in a long time. Its shipment volume has been dipping consistently since peaking in 2017 when it sold 320 million smartphones globally. The company has yet to reach pre-COVID levels (sold 295 million Galaxy phones in 2019) in four years after the pandemic. Time will tell what 2024 has in store for Samsung.
2023-11-02 15:04:32