The most popular smartphone brands across the globe

The team at JohnsPhones recently looked into mobile usage data from StatCounter to identify the most popular smartphone brands in 65 countries worldwide.

The researchers found that nearly 85% of all smartphones in the United Kingdom are different models by just three vendors, namely Apple, Samsung, and Google. In October 2023, the global smartphone market grew 5% year-on-year for the first time since June 2021, according to Counterpoint Research.

This is the first time in 27 months that global sell-in volumes increased y-o-y, probably driven by the strong recovery in sales in emerging and developing markets, as well as the launch of Apple’s iPhone 15 series in late September.

This historic recovery prompted our team to explore the current smartphone market in various countries around the world, including the UK. According to the JohnsPhones findings, smartphones by Apple, Samsung, and Google account for 84.85% of all smartphones currently used across the United Kingdom.

The JohnsPhones full findings can be read here

In November of 2023, Apple and its iPhones had a market share of 51.64% in the UK, followed by Samsung (represented mostly by Galaxy models), whose share was 30.08%. Google’s third place in the UK’s market (3.13%) is quite surprising when compared to most of the world. It is nonetheless understandable given the overall good reputation and positive reviews of Pixel phones in specialised tech publications

Interestingly, Motorola, once a mobile phone leader, which almost vanished from the market in the mid-2000s, comes next with a 2.49% market share. Chinese brands Xiaomi and Huawei follow closely with 2.33% and 2.15% of the market share, respectively.

Across Europe, Apple and Samsung are still the most used phone brands with a respective market share of 33.21% and 31.24%. Apple, however, is significantly less popular than in the UK, while affordable Chinese brands have gained market share. Xiaomi is the third-most-popular phone vendor in Europe – roughly 14.9% of all smartphones there were made by the Chinese phone manufacturer