Will iPhone 15 be the world’s most popular smartphone?

Expectation is piling up for some big success for Apple’s iPhone 15 range when it appears with yet more evidence to show the momentum is with Apple.

Nothing but the best (available)

The latest Omdia data proves that Apple is the biggest smartphone brand. Not only do its devices take five of ten slots in the most shipped chart, but Apple is selling tens of millions more devices than anyone else in the top ten, combined.

It’s a little as if now the smartphone industry has become saturated and the size of the market has begun to shrink, customers have gotten to understand that when you purchase a smartphone you have to get the best you can get.

Apple shipped 26.5 million units of the IPhone 14 Pro max alone, with an additional 21 million sales of the iPhone 14 Pro. In fifth place, Samsung’s Galaxy A14 shifted just 12.4 million devices. Across the top ten, Apple sold 86.4 million iPhones against Samsung’s 47 million phones. The data shows that sales have shrunk across the board, but Apple’s continued ascendancy seems testament of the times.

Can Apple keep the energy?

Apple executives are no doubt fretting if they can maintain the momentum.

In recent years, its customers have migrated to the higher end devices and it’s thought Apple hopes to repeat that trick again this year, in part by making the higher end device a clear market leader in terms of sophisticated technology.

If the company does achieve this, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo thinks the higher end iPhone 15 Pro max will account for up to 40% of all iPhones sold on launch. In part, the analyst cites the hugely advanced camera in these smartphones as prompting interest in purchase. It’s thought these will carry a telescopic lens, so they will be far more like a portable camera than a phone, albeit a miniaturized one. T

“Apple will likely remain the largest smartphone brand in 2024,” Ming-Chi Kuo wrote. He thinks current caution around Apple’s eventual sales numbers may turn out to be misplaced, arguing the company’s stock has a near-term rebound opportunity on strength of the sales he anticipates.

Industry wisdom?

He’s not alone. Most recently, Morgan Stanley alleged Apple to be growing in the right places, and said he expects Apple to achieve better than predicted iPhone sales.

All these predictions ar ein line with current Counterpoint data, which also predicts that iPhone 15 will quickly become the world’s biggest selling smartphone.

“It’s the closest Apple’s been to the top spot.  We’re talking about a spread that’s literally a few days’ worth of sales,” said Counterpoint’s Jeff Fieldhack, Research Director for North America.

“Assuming Apple doesn’t run into production problems like it did last year, it’s really a toss-up at this point.”

In other words, the more data we see the more it seems plausible that Apple will soon become the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturer. We’re just a few sales cycles away from finding if this is indeed the case. And if Apple can maintain its momentum.

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