Surprise, surprise. Apple and Samsung have dominated global smartphone sales once again. This time, however, Apple produced a number of the top-selling devices for the year, according to Counterpoint Research — though whether or not Apple gets the top spot depends on the region.
Globally, the iPhone XR was the highest-selling smartphone in 2019, grabbing an impressive 3% of smartphone sales. Coming in second place was the iPhone 11, which grabbed 2.1% of sales. That itself is pretty impressive, especially since the phone was only released in September, and thus only had around four months of sales in 2019.
Apple also managed to grab a few other spots in the top 10 list. The iPhone 8, in sixth place, accounted for 1.2% of sales, while the iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 7, and iPhone XS Max came in at eighth, ninth, and 10th place, respectively.
Of course, Apple wasn’t the only smartphone manufacturer on the list. Samsung did pretty well too, with the Samsung Galaxy A50 coming in third place with 1.8%, and the Galaxy A10 coming in fourth with 1.7%.
One notable omission from the global top 10 list was Huawei, which is the second-largest phone manufacturer in the world. This likely had to do with the fact that the company has concentrated its efforts in China following the U.S. trade ban, which resulted in the company doing away with Google apps and services.
Sales change quite a bit depending on region. In fact, there was no iPhone to be found on the top-five list in China, with the top devices instead coming from Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei. The Oppo A5 was the top-selling device in China with 4%, while the Oppo A9 came in second with 3%.
According to the report, all five of the bestselling smartphones in North America during 2019 were iPhones, which isn’t necessarily a huge surprise given the fact that iPhones make up for around 50% of smartphone sales in the region. Sitting in first place was the iPhone XR, which nabbed a massive 12% of smartphone sales.
While Apple hit all of the top five spots in North America, Samsung did the same in the Middle East and Africa, where the Samsung Galaxy A10 came in first, followed by the Galaxy A2 Core, Galaxy A50, Galaxy A20, and Galaxy S10.
As noted by Counterpoint, none of the top phones sold in 2019 were 5G-enabled — but that’s likely to change in 2020. Apple is widely expected to launch 5G devices in 2020, and other manufacturers will likely start to include 5G by default in their top phones.
Merely days after the iPhone Duo hit the shelves, images of broken screens on the phone started popping up across social media. Until now, it’s been unclear what’s causing the line of defective pixels that appears vertically along the crease, as well as horizontally, on the phone’s inner display.
Apple has finally acknowledged the issue, which has shown up on iPhone Duo units owned by customers as well as demo units in stores. In a statement shared with Bloomberg, Apple says that not all iPhone Duo units are affected and that those that are tend to show the display fault early on. The company added that users who experience problems with their iPhone Duo display should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.
Apple's first foldable phone is now on shelves, in short supply, but with an unreal amount of buzz around it. After all, it's the first foldable iPhone, and there's plenty that this phone gets right. But there's also a lot that is either broken or underwhelming. What's peculiar is the dialogue around this phone, and how it has completely overshadowed every other attempt at making a phone with a similar form factor.
I've spent some time with the iPhone Duo, and I've used the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for almost three months now. In my opinion, Samsung deserves more credit. When the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrived earlier this year, it was celebrated in some circles and ridiculed in others for supposedly copying what Apple would eventually deliver with the iPhone Duo. The dialogue was pretty odd, for multiple reasons. Samsung has been making foldable phones for years, so claiming that it copied a product Apple hadn't even launched was simply absurd.