The world's top five smartphone companies shipped a combined 70% of the global shipments in 2022

The world’s smartphone companies shipped a combined 1.2 billion smartphones in 2022. Here are the top five.

Source:

Counterpoint Research

Period:

2022
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Samsung’s mobile vendor share is particularly strong in Southern Africa
  • Samsung exceeds 50% share in 4 African countries, led by Somalia at 66.9%.
  • Its share exceeds 40% in 16 countries, including Ethiopia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
  • Southern Africa shows particularly high Samsung usage, with all five UN M49 countries above 44%.
  • Samsung’s share is much lower in major markets, including Nigeria (16.3%), Egypt (22.9%) and Ghana (24.7%).
  • Samsung holds a 32.0% share across Africa, based on mobile web traffic rather than device sales.
Apple's mobile vendor share exceeds 25% in seven African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%
  • Apple exceeds 25% share in 7 African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%.
  • Cape Verde and Mauritania follow, at 36.5% and 33.8%, respectively.
  • South Africa trails just below 25%, with a 24.8% share.
  • Nigeria’s 17.9% share is close to Africa’s 18.7% average, despite its market size.
  • These figures measure web traffic, not device sales or installed smartphone base.
iPhone usage in Africa is just 15%, far below North America’s 60% usage
  • North America leads globally with 60.2% iPhone usage, making it the largest iPhone market.
  • Oceania follows at 58.9%, showing similar consumer preferences to North America.
  • Africa has the lowest iPhone share (14.7%), highlighting a significant adoption gap.
  • Nigeria aligns with the continental trend at 14.1%, reinforcing that the gap is structural, not country-specific.
Samsung leads Ghana’s smartphone market with 26.4% share, followed by Tecno (17.7%) and Apple (17.4%)
  • Samsung dominates with 26.42% of Ghana’s smartphone market, making it the clear leader.
  • Tecno (17.7%) and Apple (17.4%) are in a tight race for second place, separated by just 0.3 percentage points.
  • Infinix (10.5%) and Itel (5.2%) highlight the strong presence of Transsion Holdings brands in Ghana.
  • Global giants like Huawei (6.8%) and Xiaomi (2.5%) lag behind, showing Ghana’s preference for budget-friendly African-focused brands.
Samsung commands over half of South Africa’s smartphone market at 51.5% as of July 2025
  • Samsung controls more than half of the South African smartphone market, more than all other brands combined.
  • Apple holds 17.61%, less than half of Samsung’s share, but remains the clear premium alternative.
  • Despite global challenges, Huawei captures 10.03%, placing third in the market.
  • Honor, Xiaomi, and Oppo collectively hold approximately 11.6%, while smaller brands like Tecno, Itel, and Nokia struggle below 2% each.
The total global monthly cellular data usage across all mobile app categories reached 146.92 EB in January 2025
  • Video apps consumed 75.86% of the total global mobile data, making them by far the largest data users.
  • Social networking apps accounted for 7.84% of the total data usage, translating to 11.52 exabytes.
  • The "Others" category, which includes smaller app groups, made up 10.48% of global mobile data usage.
  • Software updates consumed 2.73% of the global mobile data volume, equivalent to 4.01 exabytes.
  • Web browsing took up 1.42% of mobile data use globally, accounting for 2.09 exabytes.
  • Audio apps like streaming music services accounted for 1.20% of the total mobile data usage.
  • File sharing applications consumed just 0.47% of the mobile data globally, indicating a relatively small share compared to other categories.
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