The Galaxy S23 Ultra, the best-selling Android smartphone of 2023… far behind the iPhones

The research firm Canalys has just unveiled the list of the best-selling premium smartphones during the first quarter of 2023. It compiles devices whose recommended retail price exceeds $500, which still represents 31% of smartphones sold on the period from January to March.

This fringe has also continued to increase, since it represented only 22% of mobiles in 2019. Despite the significant drop in smartphone shipments (-13.3% compared to last year) since the end of the pandemic, the most expensive models therefore seem to be increasingly popular.

Once again, the podium is totally monopolized by Apple. Despite the few innovations brought by this generation, it is theiPhone 14 Pro Max dominates, followed by iPhone 14 Pro and standard iPhone 14. The icing on the cake, the iPhone 13 even retains fourth place. Canalys does not specify the volumes sold, but one can refer to the order of magnitude on the graph to see the extent of this monopoly.

The Galaxy S23 Ultra occupies fifth place and therefore becomes the best-selling Android smartphone of the quarter. A great success for a model costing €1419, which confirms this enthusiasm for the very high end. But the surge of iPhones preceding it says a lot about the difficulty of federating under Android. However, we note the presence of the Galaxy Z Flip 4 in 10th place, which underlines a certain enthusiasm for folding formats. Enough to encourage the South Korean giant to persevere on this path.

The rest of the top 15 is mainly disputed between Apple and Samsung, although we note the presence of the Xiaomi 13 in 13th place, followed by Huawei’s Mate 50, two devices positioned in the premium segment. The very solid Honor Magic 5 Pro was not released in time to be counted in this graph.

Finally, we must not forget that certain so-called premium models do not benefit from the same geographical availability as those of Apple, Xiaomi or Samsung. This is the case with Google’s recent Pixel 7, which is only sold in 17 countries. Same observation for the Oppo Find N2, which remained confined to its country of origin.

According to the firm’s previous analyses, it is to be expected “marginal growth” over the rest of the 2023 financial year. Hoping that this does not slow down innovation too much in a sector that badly needs it.