iPhone market share soars in South Asia, rises to 33% in South Korea, Samsung drops to 46% in its domestic market
Eric Pfanner / Wall Street Journal :
Context & Ripple Effects
In early 2015 the smartphone war reached Samsung's home turf: Apple's large-screen iPhones pushed its South Korean share to 33%, cutting Samsung to 46% domestically — a striking reversal in the one market Samsung had treated as untouchable. The mechanism was visible in the related coverage: within months Samsung reported a profit decline of 39% blamed on bigger iPhones, confirming the screen-size gap was costing it both units and margin.
The longer arc frames how unusual this was. Samsung later clawed back ground abroad, briefly outselling Apple in the US in late 2020, and by 2025 the global race had tightened to near parity, with Apple leading full-year shipments at 20% versus Samsung's 19% — but the home-market erosion shown here marked the moment premium-share competition went truly global.
First-order effects
- Samsung's domestic share falling to 46% strips away its safest revenue base just as Apple's larger iPhones take a third of South Korean buyers, forcing premium-price defense in the market where its brand is strongest.
Second-order effects
- The hit compounds abroad: the same big-iPhone demand that took Korean share drove Samsung's 39% profit decline that spring, pressuring the component-and-handset economics behind its global volume lead.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, home-market loyalty stops guaranteeing leadership anywhere: the industry settles into an Apple–Samsung duopoly that trades the top spot by region and quarter, as later US and global share swings in the coverage show.
The trend: Smartphone competition is consolidating into a two-player premium contest in which even Samsung's home market is contestable territory rather than a guaranteed stronghold.