Apple Intelligence failed to boost iPhone sales, which fell 4.1% globally in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Apple and Samsung were still the top two global smartphone makers for the fourth quarter and 2024 overall, but both saw declines and lost market share to Chinese smartphone brands Xiaomi and Vivo, according to data from IDC.
Apple’s fourth-quarter shipments totaled 76.9 million for 23.2% of the market, up from 80.2 million and 24.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023, IDC says. Samsung had a 2.7% decline after shipping 51.7 million phones in the quarter (its next flagship, the Galaxy S25, is due on January 22).
(Credit: Counterpoint Research)
Counterpoint Research, which looked at smartphone sales for the entire year, found that Samsung and Apple were “mostly flat in 2024.” Apple’s overall business fell 2% for the year, while Samsung had a modest 1% increase.
Apple Intelligence wasn’t available on the iPhone 16 line at first, and when the first AI features arrived with iOS updates in October and December, they were relatively minor.
As a result, “Apple’s iPhone 16 series was met with a mixed response,” says Counterpoint. “However, Apple continued to grow strongly in its non-core markets such as Latin America, Africa and Asia-Pacific-Other.”
The Apple Intelligence sign in the NYC store (Credit: Emily Forlini)
Apple says its current AI features are just the first steps in a long-term revolution for its devices. They include AI-powered writing tools, a ChatGPT integration, type-to-Siri capability, notification summaries, custom-designed Genomes, and more. While most features are useful to some degree, others have been lacking, with notification summaries being particularly divisive.
Apple Intelligence is only available in English-speaking countries, including the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK. That left a gap for consumers in other countries, particularly China, where companies there — Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor, Huawei, Lenovo, realme, Transsion, TCL and ZTE — had an “outstanding” quarter, IDC says.
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Although its phones are not sold in the US, Xiaomi has grown steadily in recent years, gaining a percentage point of market share each year through 2022. In contrast, Samsung’s share has fallen from 21% to 19 %, while Apple has struggled to get over 19%, says Counterpoint.
Apple plans to upgrade its AI features to support non-English languages this year, including Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Vietnamese. That rollout begins with the April software update, though Apple hasn’t confirmed which languages will launch first.
Some of Apple’s most transformative Intelligence features are below, such as the revamped Siri, which is said to be slated for a 2026 launch.
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About Emily Forlin
Senior reporter
