I received a media release this week with a sensationalist headline. That’s nothing new – I work in the world of PR and an attention-grabbing headline and lede are important. But this one really piqued my interest.
Samsung crushes Apple with 730 million more smartphones shipped in a decade
[Note: all values in Australian dollars unless otherwise noted]
Is this true? Has Samsung really ‘crushed’ Apple? It’s hard to believe that a company with over USD$124B in quarterly sales with over USD$58B in gross margin is being crushed. That’s the same company, that has a market capitalisation of around USD$3.5T.
For the same reporting period, Samsung’s revenues were about half of those of Apple. And Samsung’s market capitalisation sits at about USD$256B – about an eighth of Apple’s market value.
What the headline alludes to is Samsung’s ‘dominance’ in smartphone sales. And, to be fair, Samsung does sell a lot more phones than Apple. A quick scan at one retailer’s website reveals that Samsung sells about eight different smartphone ranges, each with its own different colours, screen sizes and storage variants. For that retailer – it equated to around 90 different options with prices ranging from $299 to $3297.
In contrast Apple has five different ranges for sale at the same retailer has around 100 different options (I’ve excluded renewed and prepaid products from the count) with prices ranging from $707 to $2747.
When we look at the ranges, it’s clear that Samsung dominates the low-end of the market. Apple simply does not sell low-margin models which appeal in many markets.
What’s interesting is that Samsung exists in a highly competitive market. For the most part, buyers are loyal to either iOS or Android. There are some drifters – people that move between platforms – but that’s a relatively small group. Once someone invests in apps through the App Store or Google Play Store, they’re more or less locked in for life unless they’re prepared to make a significant investment in new apps.
Samsung’s sales have been falling particularly a the lower end where new competitors, primarily out of China, are scooping up the high volume/low margin market.
Apple, on the other hand, has never had an interest in catering to that market. Indeed, when the first iPhone launched, former Microsoft CDEO Steve Ballmer derided the iPhone.
$500 fully subsidised with a plan I said that is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine. Now, it may sell very well or not. We’ve got great Windows mobile devices right now we’re selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year. Apple is selling 0 phones a year. In 6 months, they’ll have the most expensive phone by far ever in the marketplace. You know let’s see what the expression is. Let’s see how the competition goes.
Steve Ballmer, Former Apple CEO, 2007
According to data from Canalys (via Phone Arena), Apple sold 77.1M iPhones in Q4 2024. iPhone sales were reported as generating USD$69.1B in sales. That’s an average prices of about USD$900 per iPhone.
For the same period, Samsung sold 51.9B smartphones for about USD$17.7B for an average price of about USD$244. However, that number is likely deflated as the Mobile Experience division, that includes smartphones, also includes the company’s range of headphones and smartwatches. So, while the revenue per phone is likely to be higher, it would need to be almost four times greater to catch up with Apple. I don’t see that as a likely scenario.
Samsung may sell more smartphones but I think Apple is happy to be outsold by numbers if it wins on revenues, margins and profitability.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.