Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17, and 17 Pro were the world’s top-selling smartphones in Q4 2025
Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17, and 17 Pro were the world’s top-selling smartphones in Q4 2025
Publish Date: 2026-04-08 08:09:00
Source Domain: www.phonearena.com
If you’ve been keeping an eye on our website for the last few months, you might already know that Apple was crowned the world’s top smartphone vendor in 2025, beating arch-rival Samsung by around 1 percent market share. That may not sound like a huge advantage, but there are certainly aspects of the mobile industry in which the global champion holds an even more impressive lead.
The leader has a 5 percent share
If it doesn’t sound impressive to you that the iPhone 17 Pro Max apparently accounted for 5 percent of all smartphone sales registered around the world between October and December 2025, you might need to take a step back and think about the sheer number of different models that are currently available in markets as diverse as the US, China, and India.
Five iPhones, four Samsungs, and one Xiaomi are among the ten best-selling smartphones of Q4 2025. | Image by Counterpoint Research
Now make sure you understand exactly what a 5 percent share means in this type of report. Yes, it means that one in every 20 smartphones sold worldwide in Q4 was an iPhone 17 Pro Max, and perhaps even more remarkably, the iPhone 17 and the 17 Pro are not ranked that far behind the gold medalist either.The Q1, Q2, and Q3 2025 champion, mind you, was the “vanilla” iPhone 16 with around 4 percent market share (every time), which obviously explains why the 2024-released 6.1-inch handset reigned supreme last year despite finishing in fourth place in Q4. The last time the top-selling mobile device held a 5 percent share was, you guessed it, in Q4 2024, when the iPhone 16 Pro Max won the trophy, so there’s definitely a good chance the “vanilla” iPhone 17 will become 2026’s number one seller instead of the 17 Pro Max.
The world’s best-selling Android phone is… not the Galaxy S25 Ultra
Or the Galaxy S25. Or even the low-end…
Source
