For years, Samsung dominated the global 
smartphone market, even outselling Apple. But in recent, things have changed
Their sales are slipping, market share is declining, and 
Apple has claimed the #1 spot. What happened?
As it turns out, it’s not just Apple that’s eating into their dominance…and it’s not 
just in western countries that Samsung is losing. Samsung has been in the mobile 
business for much longer than you’d think. They even made car phones in the 1980s.
But where our story really begins, is in 2007. When the iPhone was announced everyone 
in the industry quickly began panicking. Some initially laughed. But pretty soon, everyone saw where 
the money was going… and realized they needed a smartphone, and fast
HTC and Google released the T-Mobile G1 the next year, A phone that fizzled out, but 
brought very, very important new technology. Telecom providers base their entire 
strategies around the iPhone, like AT&T’s massive exclusive deal, and their 
competitors scrambling to find some form of touchscreen smartphone to offer.
That brings us to Samsung. From the outside they might have seemed 
like another company on the “smartphone bandwagon”, but they were different.
Samsung was in a unique position, just becoming the second biggest 
phone producer in the world in 2007, and had massive manufacturing plants everywhere.
They were the world’s leader in LED technology, and were miles ahead of everyone 
in OLED and AMOLED technology. They dominated the TV market, and had just 
finished destroying Sony. Now, Samsung was coming for Apple. But, it would take a bit of time.
While others were releasing half baked, slow, buggy and frankly, ugly phones, Samsung 
spent a couple more years developing the real “iPhone killer”.
The Samsung Galaxy. I remember the early Galaxies, these were 
about as cool and popular as the iPhone. Samsung did something else to 
stand out, something genius. In his first company speech, 
Nokia’s new CEO Stephen Elop said: “The battle of devices has now 
become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the 
hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, 
advertising, search, and many other things.” Despite being the man who almost 
killed Nokia, Elop was right. The war of Smartphones wasn’t just about 
touchscreens, it was about ecosystems. While Nokia pushed their own OS: 
Symbian, then the Windows Phone, which went about as well as you’d expect, Samsung 
pushed the real competitor to IOS: Android. A hugely popular open source 
OS, produced by Google. But Samsung wasn’t the only ones using 
Android, and many Android smartphones before the Galaxy were pretty bad.
This is why Samsung waited. By letting everyone else panic and make mistakes, 
they could slowly perfect the smartphone, and learn from everyone else, without 
losing millions like Nokia or Motorola. Samsung also had more up their 
sleeve than just Android. Remember, they were the world leader in LED 
technology, and they were going to leverage that. This meant you had a phone with possibly the 
best display, great speed, long battery life, dual-pixel cameras, and an amazing android UX.
It’s no wonder the Galaxy exploded. Within 100 days of launch, the 
Galaxy S III sold 20 million units. Things only picked up from there, which is 
where we find some truly baffling stats. We might think that Samsung was 
right behind Apple, trying to catch up to the iPhone but that’s not exactly true.
In a way, it was actually the other way around. They were beating Apple.
In July 2013, Samsung overtook Apple in global market share, 
and only gained momentum from there. In Q4, they sold 83 million smartphones 
worldwide, while Apple sold 50 million iPhones. That put Samsung’s market 
share at 29%, with Apple under 18%. Impressive, but we need to clear something up. Samsung was selling more… globally, but Apple was 
still dominating the US with 51% market share, where the real money is. Samsung 
was far behind with just 20%. There’s also the fact that Apple was the 
most profitable with the best margins, but something was clearly in motion.
Globally and even in the US, Apple’s lead was slowly shrinking, 
and most of it was taken by Samsung. If you think about it, Samsung at 
this time were the company to watch. Overtaking Apple in smartphones, 
dominating in TVs, pushing new LED technology and holding the biggest market share. Their revenue between 2008 to 2013 
more than doubled, to $210 billion. Samsung was very much the leader… 
but that was about to change. Samsung were on a roll, but they 
quickly saw their growth plateau. They peaked at 33% global market share 
at the end of 2014, but since then, it’s been largely flat, with a slight decline.
Their presence in the US is the exact same. A bit up, a bit down, largely 
flat, and way, way behind Apple. Their revenue is not so great either.
Between 2013 and 2022 it did grow by $30 billion, but that’s with many ups and 
downs. Nothing compared to their jump from 2008. And their profit was even more volatile.
Samsung exploded into the Smartphone race with the galaxy, but the fire had now dwindled.
Why? Well for starters, we need 
to look at the competition. Samsung’s growth was challenged by 
rising brands, particularly from China. Brands like Huawei and Xiaomi were releasing 
new phones at great prices, and… they were good. The gap between premium and budget was shrinking. Sure the camera might not be as good 
and it might have the same ecosystem. You could get a pretty cheap phone, and it’d still 
look amazing and you’d get 80% of the experience. Also, these brands weren’t just 
cheap, rather, “strategically cheap”. They were cheap where it mattered.
Huawei pushed aggressive R&D and high quality features, at a way cheaper price, 
while Xiaomi went for the same processor power, the same screen, just way, way cheaper.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 for example, was $400 yet had a great screen, fingerprint sensor, a camera with 
4K video, and lots of RAM. All in 2016 as well. This was a big problem for Samsung in particular. Remember, they were the bigger global player, and 
in markets like India along with Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, they started losing.
In 2015, Xiaomi sold 70 million smartphones, a 23% jump from the previous 
year, while Huawei jumped 58%. Then in 2017, Xiaomi overtook Samsung 
as the market leader in India. They were also cheap in other ways, like 
Xiaomi’s direct to consumer sales with a reliance on flash sales, compared to 
Samsung’s traditional in-store sales. But, that doesn’t answer everything.
Apple had the exact same competition, and yet almost every single year their 
global market share increased. These new entrants were a huge challenge 
for Samsung, but not so much for Apple, who were very much in the “premium” market.
This is where Apple and Samsung differ, and why Samsung struggled to grow above 30% in the US.
The Samsung galaxy is important, but in actuality, it’s only one small slice of the Samsung pie.
There’s the Galaxy S, the Z Fold or Flip, the Galaxy A series, the M series, the 
J series, the F series, all of which have overlapping designs, specs, features.
Samsung cast a wide net to catch everyone, and theoretically, it’s the right move.
But not the perfect move in reality. Many customers might think “wait, is the M better 
than the J? But, would the A be better than both?” This is called “brand cannibalization”, meaning 
Samsung essentially competes with itself. Apple, on the other hand, almost 
never does discounts and has a small selection in each generation.
You have the iPhone 15, the Plus, the Pro, and the Pro Max.
When you shop for an iPhone, it’s extremely easy to tell which phone is better in what way.
Samsung, not so much. Globally this worked, but I believe this 
prevented Samsung from dominating the US. For you phone enthusiasts, you might 
disagree, but many people don’t research every phone brand when upgrading.
70%, 80%, or even as high as 95%, of buying decisions are influenced 
by emotional, subconscious factors. Apple had an ecosystem, as expensive as it 
was. Samsung was essentially just a product. App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV, 
Apple Pay, AirPods, Macbooks, and so much more. Sure you had galaxy earbuds and other devices 
or software, but much of it was third party. It didn’t quite stack up to Apple, 
and that’s the real key here. This was important now, but it 
became much, much more very soon. It happened in October 2022. Samsung’s global market share dropped below 
Apples, as they moved into second place. The long term trend for Samsung had been 
a bit up, a bit down, but largely flat. Yet, now, it was going down… a lot. The 
exact same thing happened in the US too. What tipped the scales against Samsung? They were holding out and steady for 
so long… Why are things shrinking now? Let’s get a bit more context.
Markets don’t grow forever, even if they seem to be.
That’s certainly the case for smartphones. After over a decade of explosive 
growth, things have begun slowing down, and this is especially bad for Samsung.
Q3 2022 was the worst quarter for the industry… since 2014. Shipments globally 
began to decline, and the market dropped 9%. That doesn’t sound like much, but remember this 
is the global industry. Every 1% represents billions of dollars.
But it gets worse. The market shrunk again in 2023, 
down 4%. It bounced back in 2024, but the market has clearly flatlined.
Okay, so why is it just Samsung then? Well, it’s not just Samsung.
While steady in the US, Apple’s global market share has been shrinking 
too, from 31% in May 2023, to 26% in 2025. In early 2025, iPhone sales in China dropped 
9%. You might think “that’s just the tariffs in the trade war”, but Apple’s been 
slowing down for a couple years now. In fact, they’ve dropped all the way to third 
place in 2024, and only have 15% market share, after iPhone sales dropped over 18%. The 
largest drop they’ve seen in 8 years. Local brands like Huawei and Xiaomi have taken 
Apple’s throne. But there’s something else. Have you ever noticed how every phone company 
seems to release a new phone every year? Well, that might now be coming back to bite them.
While new smartphones are stagnating, the used smartphone market is growing, a lot.
That market was $72.9 billion in 2023, with growth of 12.4 percent.
With how expensive and how many frequent new phones come out, this makes a lot of sense. 
Buying a year-old iPhone which is 99% as good as the newest one, for under half the price? More 
and more people are beginning to see the logic. Interestingly, this used market is dominated 
by Apple and Samsung, who make up 64% of it. The moral of the story here is that 
Samsung picked a battle without clarity. Samsung made great phones. That’s not the problem.
They put themselves in an awkward place, by trying to market to premium 
customers and super cheap customers. Now they are being squeezed from both ends. 
By Apple in premium markets and the US, and cheaper brands globally.
But it’s more than selling phones, it’s keeping people. People who switch to 
Apple & their ecosystem are very unlikely to switch. It’s hard to say the same for Samsung.
The game used to be able to sell more phones to more people. Now it’s about keeping people.
Apple’s hardware margins are great, at 37% but their service margins are 
even better, as high as 73%. The reality is that Samsung needs to change 
their game, if they want to stay in it at all.