It’s a huge competitive shift. This is not about who makes the most revenue—Apple has always won there—but who ships the most units.
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Apple‘s Projected Growth: 10% year-over-year increase in phone sales.
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Samsung‘s Projected Growth: A more modest 4.6% increase.
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The Result: Apple is expected to finish 2025 with a 19.4% global market share, pushing it over the edge.
The overall smartphone market is only expected to grow a modest 3.3%, so Apple’s 10% surge is massive. It shows that the highly positive initial reception for the iPhone 17 series has stuck.
Why the Sudden Surge?
The thing is, this isn’t random. The analyst, Yang Wang, pointed to two main drivers:
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The Upgrade Inflection Point: Consumers who bought smartphones during the COVID-19 boom are now finally entering their upgrade phase. Their old phones are just too old. Apple stands to benefit massively from this cycle.
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The Secondhand Pipeline: Between 2023 and mid-2025, 358 million secondhand iPhones were sold. These users—who are new to the ecosystem or holding older models—are all highly likely candidates to jump to a new iPhone 17 or 18 in the coming years. It’s a massive, banked customer base.
The Long Game
The company’s guidance that this holiday quarter will be its “biggest ever” backs up the Counterpoint prediction. Tim Cook keeps highlighting the iPhone 17 lineup’s strength, even if the iPhone Air model saw a tepid response.
This momentum isn’t stopping soon, either. Counterpoint predicts Apple will keep the top spot until at least 2029, helped by the future launch of the rumored foldable iPhone and a budget-friendly iPhone 17e. The long-term plan is in motion.
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