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2023 hasn’t been the best of years for the smartphone industry. Sales saw a massive decline in the first six months of the year globally, including in North America. According to research firm Canalys, the region recorded the “worst quarterly performance for over a decade” in Q2 2023. New launches from Samsung, Google, and Apple will help the market recover a little in the second half, but we are still staring at a shipment decline for the full year.
Canalys estimates North America’s smartphone market to shrink 12 percent in 2023, dropping below 140 million units. The firm says macroeconomic challenges such as rising interest rates and persistent inflation have led to a drop in consumer demand. As has been the trend globally, the premium segment has held strong in the region despite the challenges. It’s the low-end segment that is seeing the worst drop in sales due to dwindling prepaid demand.
The research firm sees the market growing marginally over the next few years. However, the shipment volume is “unlikely to break the 150-million-unit mark any time before 2027.” Smartphone shipments in North America had crossed 160 million units in 2021 when the industry started recovering from an unprecedented slowdown due to the coronavirus lockdowns in 2020. Time will tell whether the market will rebound to those levels in the coming years.
All top smartphone companies suffered a shipment decline in Q2 2023
As usual, Apple topped the US smartphone market in Q2 2023 with a whopping 54 percent share. Samsung followed it distantly, capturing 24 percent of the market. However, both companies suffered a decline in shipments this past quarter. Apple shipped 14.8 million iPhones between April and June this year, down 20 percent from the 18.5 million phones it sold during the same period last year.
Samsung’s shipment volume declined 27 percent from nine million to 6.6 million units during this period. Motorola and TCL, which are the next two biggest smartphone companies in the US, suffered a similar fate. Their shipments dropped 25 percent and 30 percent respectively. Overall, the US smartphone market saw a 22 percent decline in shipments in Q2 2023, which is huge.
Google defied this trend, though. It launched the Pixel 7a in May and ended up doubling its market share from two percent to four percent thanks to a staggering 59 percent increase in sales. The company is now gearing up to launch the Pixel 8 series in early October. Apple launched the iPhone 15 series a couple of weeks back, while Samsung debuted new foldables in August. These new arrivals should help the market recover in the third and fourth quarters of 2023.
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