Global market share held by mobile phone vendors 1997-2014

The statistic shows the share of mobile phone sales worldwide to end users by vendor from 1997 to 2014. In 2014, Samsung held a market share of 20.9 percent of mobile phone sales worldwide.

Mobile phone market share - additional information

With a market share of about 21 percent, Samsung is the leading mobile phone vendor worldwide. Samsung has held the top position since 2012 when the South Korean company passed Nokia, Samsung’s closest competitor at the time. Nokia has seen its mobile phone market share fall from nearly 40 percent in 2008 to almost ten percent in 2014, dropping to third place in terms of market share in the beginning of 2015. The second largest mobile phone vendor in the world is Apple, with a share of around ten percent.

Samsung is especially known for some of its consumer products such as mobile devices and home entertainment systems. In the third quarter of 2015, the South Korean company sold over 100 million mobile phones. Samsung also leads the smartphone market; the company accounts for 42.7 percent of all smartphone shipments worldwide, with 306 million unitsin 2016 alone. The success in the mobile market is reflected in the company’s global revenue.

Apple has taken over the position of second largest mobile phone vendor in the world due to Nokia's decline, and the increasing popularity of smartphones. The company shipped just over 215 million smartphones in 2016. The iPhone is Apple's main product, and generates more than 60 percent of the company's revenue.