iPhone Shipments Up 13% Amid Global Smartphone Market Slowdown

Apple achieved impressive 13% year-over-year growth in Q1 2025, shipping 55 million iPhones worldwide and increasing its global market share to 19%, up from 16% a year ago, according to the latest Canalys research.

Apple iPhone 16 family lineup
Apple's performance is in stark contrast to the broader smartphone market, which recorded just 0.2% growth with 296.9 million units shipped globally.

Samsung maintained its lead with 60.5 million units and 20% market share, but it grew only 1% compared to last year. Xiaomi secured third place with 41.8 million units, followed by vivo and OPPO with about 8% market share each.

The U.S. smartphone market was a bright spot, growing 12% year-on-year, mainly driven by iPhone sales. According to Le Xuan Chiew of Canalys, "Apple proactively built up inventory ahead of anticipated tariff policies," which helped it lead the pack.

Apple has been diversifying production recently by ramping up iPhone manufacturing in India for both standard iPhone 15 and 16 models, as well as iPhone 16 Pro models. Ongoing fluctuations in reciprocal tariff policies are making Apple further shift U.S.-bound production to India to reduce exposure to future risks.

global smartphone shipments q1 2025 canalys
There was a lot of variation in regional demand in Q1. The U.S. market grew substantially and China benefited from government subsidies, but previously strong markets like India, Latin America, and the Middle East had notable declines.

Canalys expects the U.S. smartphone market to experience significant volatility over the next two to three quarters, due to inventory corrections and weakening consumer confidence in the face of fluctuating import tariffs.

Tag: Canalys

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Top Rated Comments

contacos Avatar
3 weeks ago
Well didn’t Apple ship tons of iPhones to avoid the tariffs
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DEMinSoCAL Avatar
3 weeks ago
Shipments does not equal sales. Like was stated above, Apple flew 5 cargo jets of iPhones to the US before the tariffs kicked in this past quarter. I'm guessing a lot of the "good news" here is just tons of iPhones sitting in warehouses now.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neuropsychguy Avatar
3 weeks ago

...mainly driven by iPhone sales

I do wonder what other part has been driving the smartphone sales of Apple. Do they sell another smartphone besides the iPhone or, and that's my guess, is this sloppy writing?
Are you talking about this sentence? "The U.S. smartphone market was a bright spot, growing 12% year-on-year, mainly driven by iPhone sales."

That's saying the whole U.S. smartphone market had 12% growth in smartphone sales [across all brands]. Apple's 13% growth was a major component of the U.S. growth.

Not sloppy writing, probably just reading/skimming too quickly! We all do it.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
wbeasley Avatar
3 weeks ago
perhaps coming year is going to be more of a challenge with tariff issues...
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
3 weeks ago

So you think the 16e was a hit?
Yes, there were previous reports that it is selling well. How much a role in that corporate purchases have is unclear, though we have threads in this forum that show there are many happy regular buyers as well. I personally think it's a bit overpriced for the feature set.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
webkit Avatar
3 weeks ago

It would be interesting to see what happened if those Chinese brands were able to sell their phones in the US.
It would be interesting to see what happened if China didn't impose restrictions on iPhone usage/ownership by government officials and employees of state-owned enterprises. China also puts restrictions on some iPhone features (such as those related to Apple Intelligence) which can make the phones less appealing.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)