2024 global smartphone market grew, but the goalposts are moving
According to IDC, the 2024 global smartphone market grew by 6.4% to 1.24 billion shipped units, but it was at the expense of Apple and Samsung’s share.
The strong growth witnessed in 2024 proves the smartphone market resilience despite lingering macro challenges, currency rate, ongoing inflation, and lukewarm demand, said Nabila Popal, senior research director for Worldwide Client Devices, IDC.
Chinese makers Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor, Huawei, Lenovo, realme, Transsion, TCL, and ZTE achieved a historic milestone, shipping the highest combined volume ever in a quarter, representing 56% of the global smartphone shipments in Q4/24. While their core markets remain China and Asia, these brands are rapidly expanding their footprint throughout Europe and Africa, driven by the strong performance of their low-end and mid-range devices.
Apple’s Chinese market share continues to drop, falling behind vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, and OPPO. Respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts at least a 6% drop year-over-year for H1/25 as Chinese buyers increase loyalty to Chinese brands.
IDC Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Smartphone Shipments
Market Share and Year-Over-Year Growth (Preliminary results, shipments in millions of units)
Company | 2024 Shipments | 2024 Market Share | 2023 Shipments | 2023 Market Share | 2024/2023 Growth |
1. Apple | 232.1 | 18.7% | 234.3 | 20.1% | -0.9% |
2. Samsung | 223.4 | 18.0% | 226.7 | 19.5% | -1.4% |
3. Xiaomi | 168.5 | 13.6% | 146.0 | 12.5% | 15.4% |
4. Transsion* | 106.9 | 8.6% | 94.9 | 8.2% | 12.7% |
4. OPPO* | 104.8 | 8.5% | 103.4 | 8.9% | 1.4% |
Others | 402.9 | 32.5% | 358.9 | 30.8% | 12.3% |
Total | 1,238.8 | 100.0% | 1,164.1 | 100.0% | 6.4% |
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, January 13, 2025
Looking at Statistica reveals a similar picture (see note on statistics later)

Global versus Australia
Xiaomi has just started to sell a limited range of Australian-certified Redmi (via JB Hi-Fi) and POCO via Xiaomitech AU direct. This global giant aims to eat Samsung’s market share via a slow and steady global expansion with better performance and better-value phones. See CyberShack POCO articles here and Redmi here.
Transsion (2006) sells mobile phones in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Latin America. Brands include Tecno, Itel, Infinix, and Spice. It has factories in China, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and India. It holds well over 55% of the African market and is unlikely to come here.
OPPO ties with Transsion at #4. It owns OnePlus, Realme and segment-specific brands. Its sister company, vivo, is fourth in the Chinese market.
Australian Market
You won’t see Nokia (HMD dumps Nokia. Uncertain future for the iconic brand), TCL, Motorola, and Google in the top five global players, but at least two are doing very well here.
Google has about 8%, OPPO 2.5%, and Motorola 1.5%, which are minnows compared to Samsung at 28% and Apple at 54.5% (Source Statistica).

Australia likes #2 Google Pixel, which eclipses sales in Canada/US at 5.5/4.5%, EU/UK at 3.4/3.9% and India at 3.1%.
It is also likes OPPO, which has maintained its #3 Android position via its value A-series and mid-range Reno-series. As we wrote in OPPO Find X8 Pro – at last, flagship competition (smartphone review), “OPPO Australia left the premium market after the 2022 Find X5 Pro—still one of the best flagship phones ever. This was for a few practical reasons. First, while the Australian sales numbers were respectable, the costs of getting Australian certification made it uneconomic. Second, Samsung had far deeper pockets to promote its flagship Galaxy S-series phones. Finally, world demand for the Find X6 and X7 meant that Australia could not secure enough supplies. The amazing OPPO Find X8 Pro is back and giving the Samsung Galaxy S24-series a real run for the money”.
Motorola is at #4, with its excellent phones in every niche. However, it has only achieved a relatively static 1.5% of Australia’s market share. Many new well-featured and well-priced models are coming, and its share should increase.
Our guide to Best Android phones 11/2024 will be updated in February after new Samsung, OPPO and Motorola models are released. It lists over 100 phones in $100 price brackets, basic specifications, and, most importantly, the phone signal strength for Australia and whether it is suitable for regional and rural use.
Note on lies, damned lies and statistics for the 2024 global smartphone market
There are several ways to measure sales. None are accurate, but all show trends.
- ‘Shipped in,’ which IDC uses, means some (often lots) could be sitting in warehouses.
- ‘Sold to channel’ used by gfk can be rubbery, relying on voluntary manufacturer and retailer information.
- ‘Activations to a network’ include refurbished and second-hand handsets.
- ‘App activations’ capture the number of standard apps and their activations.
- Interview panels like Canstar use the percentage of users’ brands and intentions and extrapolate that to market share.
- As far as we can tell, there are no actual Australian ‘sold to user’ figures – the only accurate way to measure new phone sales.
So please take the statistics as a trend guide only.
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