Canalys

Canalys’s shipment estimates tracked a swing from a 17% global smartphone slump in Q4 2022 to 309.9 million units in Q3 2024, the strongest third quarter since 2021.

Who they are

Canalys appears in coverage as a technology-market analyst whose shipment estimates and vendor rankings frame stories about smartphones, PCs, tablets and smart speakers. Its data is used to assess the relative positions of manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and Google, particularly in China, India and global markets.

The recent arc

The most concentrated recent coverage came in Q4 2022, when Canalys documented a sharp demand reset: global smartphone shipments fell 17% year over year to their lowest quarterly level since 2013, while PC shipments fell for a fourth consecutive quarter alongside estimates from IDC and Gartner. Coverage then followed regional weakness and stabilization, including India’s 6% Q3 2022 decline and its near-flat 36.1 million-unit Q2 2023 result after three declining quarters.】【”】【

By 2024 and early 2025, the focus had shifted to an uneven recovery and changing vendor positions. Canalys reported global smartphone shipments up 5% to 309.9 million in Q3 2024, China up 10% in Q2 as Huawei shipments rose 41% and Apple’s share fell, and India’s Q4 2023 shipments up 20% after five quarters of declines. Its latest China reading put 2024 shipments at 285 million, with Huawei gaining while Apple declined; its PC coverage also highlighted AI PCs as 14% of Q2 shipments, led heavily by Apple machines.

The tension

The coverage repeatedly centers on whether demand recovery translates into durable share gains for particular vendors. In China, Huawei’s resurgence has coincided with Apple’s weaker share, while Samsung, Xiaomi and Vivo remain key reference points in global and Indian rankings. Canalys’s estimates also sit within a contested measurement landscape: the Q2 2025 worldwide smartphone figure of a 1% decline contrasted with IDC’s assessment, underscoring how closely market narratives depend on competing tracker methodologies.

Why it matters

If the recovery remains uneven, Canalys’s quarterly readings will continue to be a useful signal of where replacement demand, premium-device buying and regional competition are concentrating rather than a simple indicator of a broad hardware rebound. The open question is whether Huawei’s China momentum, Apple’s role in AI PCs, and gains by Android vendors can persist amid weak demand signals and differing estimates from other research firms.

Related: Apple · China · Samsung · Huawei · India · Canalys: China's smartphone shipments rose 10% YoY in Q2, with Huawei'