Apple has managed to secure its largest-ever share of the world’s smartphone market, according to research done by Counterpoint. This was against a backdrop of generally falling smartphone sales but it doesn’t matter. It still counts.

Usually, when words like “smartphone” and “market share” are thrown around, it’s because Samsung is (still) on top or was (briefly) dethroned. Performance tends to go the South Korean company’s way but it turns out that Q4 2022 was the exception. Whether it proves the rule remains to be seen.

A good Apple quarter

According to Counterpoint‘s analysts, Apple secured 18% of the world’s smartphone shipments in Q4 2022. That’s an impressive feat at the best of times but when you only really sell one product (and four models), it’s actually pretty hard to pull off. But there are larger numbers for the Californian company to be proud of.

That 18% shipment share also translated into a revenue share of 48%, a personal best for the company. Additionally, the company’s operating profit share over the period was a massive 85%. But this improved performance was offset by the fact that everybody shipped fewer smartphones in Q4 2022 than they did in Q4 2021.

Apple’s shipments dipped by 14%. Samsung’s fell by 16%. Xiaomi saw the largest drop with 26% fewer phones out the door over the last three months of 2022. Globally, there were 18% fewer smartphones shipped over the period. That’s still 303 million smartphones but the industry managed to shift 371 million in 2021.

Several factors contributed to the current state of affairs. There’s the whole Ukraine situation, which means at least two countries are spending money on tanks and bullets instead of smartphones. Some regions of China went into lockdown again over the period, stalling sales in that market. It was only the premium device market (the main section Apple occupies) that was “…less severely affected by the economic and geopolitical uncertainties that marred the year.”