The iPhone X is the World’s Best-Selling Smartphone: Strategy Analytics

Contrary to the controversy surrounding the high price of Apple’s iPhone X, it turns out it was the best-selling smartphone model of last quarter, worldwide, on a unit-sales basis.

According to a new report from Strategy Analytics, Apple’s most expensive smartphone ever, with a $1319 CAD starting price, has defied expectations to sell nearly 50 million units since its launch just six months ago.

“We estimate the Apple iPhone X shipped 16.0 million units and captured 5 percent marketshare worldwide in Q1 2018,” wrote Juha Winter, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics. “For the second quarter running, the iPhone X remains the world’s most popular smartphone model overall, due to a blend of good design, sophisticated camera, extensive apps, and widespread retail presence for the device.”

In addition to claiming the top spot, Apple took over second, third, and fourth place too, shipping 12.5 million iPhone 8 units, 8.3 million iPhone 8 Plus units, and 5.6 million iPhone 7 units. In all, Apple captured over 12% of the market with its four most popular phones last quarter, which is quite an impressive achievement.

The next fastest-selling seem to lag quite a bit. Xiaomi, the privately held Chinese start-up that has filed to go public on the Hong Kong exchange, had sales of 5.4 million of its Redmi 5A, and Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S9 Plus, introduced at the end of February, came in at sixth place with 5.3 million.

Apple could face stiff competition soon from Samsung, however. Woody Oh, director at Strategy Analytics, noted that the S9 Plus that launched in February “delivers an attractive, bezel-less, curved-screen design, a rich portfolio of software apps, and best-in-class retail distribution across dozens of countries,” and that “we expect the S9 Plus to become the best-selling Android smartphone globally in the second quarter of 2018.”

Rather than being a failure, it seems as if the iPhone X has put Apple into the lead of the new generation of smartphones. Apparently, consumers have decided its features trump its high price point.

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