If there's one thing Samsung's good at, it's consistently beating Apple for the top spot in the global smartphone market, even in years where it sees tis overall market share drop nominally. That's precisely what happened last year, when Samsung's total market share decreased by 1% because of tough competition from Chinese OEMs.

However, Samsung closed out the year with a 19% share. This means that of all smartphones sold anywhere in the world, 19% of them were made by Samsung. Samsung's share is just slightly down from 20% in 2023.

Samsung's got good momentum for 2026

This is according to the latest market data from Counterpoint. As always, Apple came in second place with a market share of 18%. It has also posted a 1% decline from the previous year. Meanwhile, Xiaomi increased its market share by 1%, coming in at 14%. Xiaomi has been trending up for the past two years largely on the back of its performance in emerging markets.

Rounding out the list of top five companies by market share are Oppo and Vivo in fourth and fifth place, respectively, with an 8% market share each. Such is the dominance of Chinese OEMs in the global market that Samsung and Apple are the only two non-Chinese brands on the list.

Samsung's market share was sustained largely due to the success of the Galaxy S24 and the continued momentum of the Galaxy A series. The Galaxy S24 was the first device to bring Galaxy AI to the masses and it largely received a positive reception in the market.

Meanwhile, while Apple's iPhone 16 series introduced Apple Intelligence, those features had limited to no usability in China, which dented the demand in one of the country's most lucrative markets.

Samsung is on strong footing as we progress further in the new year. The company will be launching the Galaxy S25 series next week with several new Galaxy AI features and other improvements. This will provide a good launching pad for growth in 2025.

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