If you need any solid evidence as to Apple's absolute domination of the global smartphone market, look no further than Counterpoint Research's compilation of the top 10 best-selling smartphones of 2025, where the iPhone 16, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 Pro, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max occupy the top four slots in the ranking, respectively.
Apple iPhone 16 becomes the best-selling smartphone of 2025, the base iPhone 17 registers the highest growth
Counterpoint Research has now published its aggregation of the best-selling smartphones of 2025, noting:
- Apple and Samsung captured the top 10 slots in the ranking for 2025, which cumulatively account for 19 percent of the global smartphone sales for the year.
- The base iPhone 17 registered "the highest growth while jumping up four spots."
- The iPhone 17 series recorded 16 percent higher sales than the preceding iPhone 16 series during its first full quarter in the market.
- Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra has "narrowed the sales share gap with Samsung’s best-selling A series despite the significant price contrast."
Of course, not all recent Apple iPhone launches have been successful. We noted recently that, as per the tidbit shared by Ice Universe, Apple has managed to sell just 200,000 units of the iPhone Air in China so far vs. the 17 million units of the iPhone 17 lineup.
This comes as we reported recently that Apple's Tmall-based official online store in China was offering discounts of up to 2,000 yuan ($286) to encourage sales uptake. This means that you can grab a new iPhone Air for just around $788 in the Asian giant.
Similarly, JD.com is offering a subsidy of around $57 on top of Apple's official discount, leading to a cumulative price reduction of around $415.
The iPhone Air has also had the highest depreciation rate of any iPhone model launched since 2022, with data revealing that the device has lost 47.7 percent of its original value in the first 10 weeks of its inception.
Do note that the Apple iPhone Air only offers a hobbled battery capacity, a single 48MP camera, albeit with Telephoto-like optical-quality 2× zoom, and a single speaker.
Additionally, Counterpoint Research noted back in November that Apple was likely to end 2025 with a 10 percent year-over-year growth in iPhone shipments, which would take its share of the global smartphone market to 19.4 percent - the highest among global smartphone OEMs.
What's more, another recent Counterpoint Research report showed that Apple's iPhones constituted a quarter of all smartphones sold in China during October – a milestone that Apple managed to hit only once before, back in 2022.
As far as hard numbers are concerned, do note that Apple sold 231.8 million iPhones in 2024. Therefore, a 10 percent increase from this baseline means that Apple is likely to have shipped a whopping 254.98 million iPhones by the end of 2025.
Finally, do note that Apple's Tim Cook had predicted during the Cupertino giant's last earnings call that the company would break all sales records during its December-ending quarter:
"We expect the December quarter revenue to be the best ever for the company and the best ever for iPhone."
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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