Apple builds strong market share on the back of iPhone 13 with feature phones making a surprise surge

Smartphone sales are doing it tough at the moment due to economic pressures and supply shortages, but sales are still moving and in the months since we last looked at the market, there’s been a number of new models launched and today Kantar has released their latest breakdown. 

In their latest report covering Q2 2022, the Kantar World Panel results for the Australian smartphone market shows a gain for Apple, with the number showing a strong Year-over-Year (YoY) increase to 44.3% of the market. Of course the market they’ve clawed back is from Android, which showed a decline to just 55.7% of the market in the same period. 

In the Australian market, the mid-tier iPhone SE 2nd Gen has bolstered Apple’s numbers seeing upgrades from users with older iPhones. For Android, while the numbers were down YoY  in terms of market share, numbers were up from last quarter, with OPPO and Samsung both building their market share, increasing 6.2% and 30.9% respectively, with the Find X5 a standout for OPPO. A number of Android makers also saw increases in the last year with Google, Xiaomi, LG and Realme showing increased sales.

The Kantar report has listed the top 10 mobile models sold in each market for the last three months, with the iPhone 13 topping the list in most markets. Samsung made a strong showing as the main contender on the lists in most markets, except mainland China where models from home-grown brands including Xiaomi and Honor made their top 10.

A small anomaly for the market, shows that Feature Phones are making a small resurgence. Sales have doubled YoY to 8.2% in the 3 months ending June 2022. Kantar found that 35% of the feature phone buyers were aged under 25, making them a larger buyer of feature phones than those aged over 50, with Nokia leading the charge in the feature phone market – go Gen Z!

We’re approaching an exciting second half of the year for the smartphone market, with Samsung set to hold their Galaxy Unpacked event on August 10th to announce new foldable Galaxy Z devices, while Apple is expected to announce their iPhone 14 models around mid-September. How these numbers shake out, we’ll see closer to the end of the year.