Report: Most sold phones of 2019
The year of 2019 is behind us and for some brands it was a successful year, while for others it was a troubling and turbulent year. Last year we saw the first direct political attack on a smartphone vendor, Huawei, that lead to serious supply chain problems and we also saw a few interesting devices from Nokia Mobile, most notably the Nokia 9 PureView and attractive feature phones, like 2720 Flip and 800 Tough.
Counterpoint Research posted a report that shows us which phone models were best selling in 2019. The list of top 10 smartphones globally and top 5 smartphones regionally doesn’t include any Nokia smartphones, but there are some devices from which Nokia Mobile might learn something for the future.
Globally, the two top selling devices were Apple’s iPhone XR and iPhone 11, followed by Galaxy A50 and Galaxy A10. The Galaxy A50 is an interesting devices, because it is a midrange phone that Samsung packed with solid specifications like OLED screen, underdisplay fingerprint sensor and a good camera, but, more importantly, Samsung had an aggressive ad campaign, especially in Europe, to show off the new A50. In many countries, the A50 turned out to be a best buy device for folks that want a solid phone with a familiar brand.
If we take a look at the regional split above, Apple dominates in North America, while Samsung dominates in Latin America and Middle East and Africa. Europe is also a strong Samsung market, with Apple being strong as well. We can see that A10, A40 and A50 proved out to be successful lower end, midrange models in Europe. In rest of Asia, the A50 again stands out, but we also have the young brand Realme with their C2 device making it into top 5. Realme’s appearance shows that even with limited availability, a value for money device can be successful. In China, Oppo and Vivo smartphones lead, with Huawei P30 closing the top 5.
It’s a bit sad that at least in Europe Nokia Mobile didn’t have some breakthrough, but maybe in 2020 the situation will get better. I’m also a bit surprised that Huawei hasn’t made it to any top 5 list apart China, while still being the second biggest phone vendor in 2019.
Be free to share your thoughts about best selling phones (and why they were selling that well) down below 🙂
