Counterpoint: Q2 global smartphone revenue rose 7% YoY, and average device selling price rose 17% to $400; Apple took 49% of global revenue, and Samsung 16%
Context & Ripple Effects
The market had already returned to modest unit growth in 2025, with Apple leading shipments and Samsung close behind in the 2025 shipment rankings. This quarter’s figures shift the focus from unit leadership to the value captured per handset.
Apple had previously taken a record 45% of smartphone revenue during a market-wide revenue decline in Q2 2023. Its 49% share in a growing-revenue quarter indicates that its revenue position has strengthened as the market’s average selling price rises.
First-order effects
- Revenue growth and a 17% rise in the global average selling price make premium-priced devices a larger contributor to the smartphone market’s value this quarter.
- Apple captures nearly half of global smartphone revenue, while Samsung’s 16% share leaves it with a much smaller portion of the market’s revenue pool despite its scale in shipments.
Second-order effects
- The gap between shipment leadership and revenue capture raises pressure on Samsung and other Android vendors to improve premium-device mix and monetization, not merely unit volume.
- With average selling prices rising faster than total revenue, vendors and channel partners face a market where mix and pricing discipline matter more than broad volume expansion.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, smartphones will become increasingly concentrated around a smaller premium revenue pool, with the strongest brands able to fund product ecosystems and distribution from higher revenue per device.
- The market’s key competitive metric may continue shifting from shipment share toward revenue and growth among the leading handset makers, reinforcing premiumization even when overall demand is subdued.
The trend: The smartphone industry is moving toward premiumization, where value capture is increasingly determined by device mix and average selling prices rather than shipment share alone.