According to the latest research from Canalys, the global technology market analyst firm, the worldwide smartphone market grew 1% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025.
While growth was modest, it came amid persistent macroeconomic headwinds and cautious consumer sentiment in light of this, as well as delayed channel inventory digestion.
Canalys highlighted that Samsung took the global lead with a 20% market share, the same as last year, while Apple closely followed with an 18% share, a 2% increase over Q1 2024.
Xiaomi, meanwhile, came third with 14%, maintaining its share of a year ago. This is while vivo and OPPO ranked fourth and fifth respectively, each with an 8% share of the market. vivo increased its share over last year by 1%.
Other competing companies as a whole took the remaining 32% market share, though this fell by 2% when compared to the first quarter of 2024.
“The overall environment proved to be more volatile than anticipated in Q1 2025, while the global market continued its recovery,” said Amber Liu, who serves as research manager at Canalys.
“Following a strong finish to 2024, vendors pushed high inventory volumes into channels to gain share. But slower-than-expected sell-through extended inventory cycles, dampening sell-in momentum in early 2025. Unlike 2024’s recovery, which was driven by a post-pandemic upgrade cycle and mass-market affordability, this year’s rebound is proving more fragile.”
Sanyam Chaurasia, a senior analyst at the research firm, also commented that “cautious consumer sentiment driven by global macroeconomic challenges muted the typical seasonal uplift in Q1.”
“Even festive periods in key markets, such as Ramadan, delivered softer demand than expected. In response to a more gradual recovery in volume, vendors are prioritizing profitability while remaining active and flexible with market investments.
“Tactics include dynamic channel incentive schemes to encourage sell-in, collaborations with distributors to expand financing in emerging markets and agile channel pricing strategies to strike a balance between overall profitability and price competitiveness.”
Recommended reading
The smartphone market findings have shortly followed Canalys’ research around PC shipments, which discovered that total shipments of desktop computers, notebook devices, and workstations grew 9.4% to 62.7 million units in Q1 2025.
However, the firm noted that first quarter volumes were boosted by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) ramping up shipments to the US in anticipation of the Trump administration’s tariff announcements.
