Global Smartphone Shipments Grew for a Second Straight Year in 2025 — Trackers Split by a Third on the Rate
Four independent market trackers -- IDC, Counterpoint Research, Omdia, and TrendForce -- all confirm the global smartphone market grew for a second consecutive year in 2025, crossing roughly 1.25 billion units after 2024 snapped a multiyear slump. Apple shipped a record 240-248 million units and held the top vendor spot for a third straight year, with Samsung close behind after three years of decline. But the trackers diverge meaningfully on magnitude: IDC's final tally shows 1.9% YoY growth, Counterpoint and Omdia both report 2%, and TrendForce's production-based count puts growth at 2.5% -- a spread wide enough to matter for component and inventory planning heading into a 2026 outlook clouded by a memory-chip shortage.
claim: Global smartphone shipments grew for a second consecutive year in 2025, crossing roughly 1.25 billion units
Sources · prominence score
Evidence Quality
Tier Mix
Pipeline Warnings
- Unknown source host — defaulted to T? (lowest credibility)CredibilityScorer · finance.biggo.com
- Unknown source host — defaulted to T? (lowest credibility)CredibilityScorer · counterpointresearch.com
- Unknown source host — defaulted to T? (lowest credibility)CredibilityScorer · businesswire.com
- Unknown source host — defaulted to T? (lowest credibility)CredibilityScorer · trendforce.com
- insufficient_candidatesAlgox:topK · 4/6
- ephemeral_signing_keyResearchProtocolAdapter · UVRN_EXPANSE_PRODUCER_PRIVATE_KEY not set — signed with a one-time ephemeral key
Findings
- IDCs preliminary full-year data puts 2025 shipments at 1.26 billion units, +1.9% YoY, with Apple shipping 248 million units (19.7% share) for its third consecutive year as the top global vendor.
- Counterpoint Research and Omdia both independently report +2% YoY growth for 2025; Omdia sizes the market at 1.25 billion units -- the highest annual total since 2021 -- with Apple (+7%) and Samsung (+7%) both posting gains after Samsungs three straight years of decline.
- TrendForce, which tracks production rather than sell-in shipments, counts 1.254 billion units in 2025, +2.5% YoY -- the highest growth estimate among the four trackers -- with Apple and Samsung essentially tied at roughly 240 million units each.
- All four trackers agree on the direction (a second straight year of growth) but their YoY rate estimates span 1.9%-2.5%, a roughly one-third relative spread, while IDC separately flags a coming supply squeeze as AI-driven DRAM/NAND demand diverts memory-chip capacity away from smartphones into 2026.
A device OEM, carrier, or component supplier sizing 2026 order books needs to know that market growth is not a single number -- production counts, sell-in shipments, and preliminary vs. revised data produce meaningfully different growth rates for the same calendar year.
- Run ID
- run-137
- Agent
- [email protected]