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The iPhone X, Apple’s ‘overpriced flop,’ is the best-selling smartphone in the world

Published May 4th, 2018 10:56AM EDT
iPhone X best-selling phone
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

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While the iPhone X may not have been as outrageously successful as previous iPhones, the new model didn’t have any problems shooting to the top of the charts in the weeks and months after its release. According to the latest data from Strategy Analytics, the iPhone X was the best-selling smartphone model on the planet in Q1 2018, shipping 16 million units all around the world. That’s nearly 5% of the 345 million smartphones that shipped in total. This might be pretty surprising news if you recall all of the doom and gloom reports from the past few months claiming that sales were disappointing and production had been cut because the phone was far too expensive.

In addition to claiming the top spot, Apple took over second, third and fourth place too, shipping 12.5 million iPhone 8 units, 8.3 million iPhone 8 Plus units and 5.6 million iPhone 7 units. In all, Apple captured over 12% of the market with its four most popular phones last quarter, which is an impressive achievement.

Here’s what Strategy Analytics senior analyst Juha Winter had to say about Apple’s recent success:

For the second quarter running, the iPhone X remains the world’s most popular smartphone model overall, due to a blend of good design, sophisticated camera, extensive apps, and widespread retail presence for the device. Apple has now shifted almost 50 million iPhone X units worldwide since commercial launch in November 2017.

After a very slight drop-off, the first Android phone makes an appearance in fifth place: Xiaomi’s Redmi 5A with 5.4 million units shipped. Samsung’s Galaxy S9 Plus comes in right behind it with 5.3 million shipments to round out the top six. While this might not look very encouraging for Samsung, keep in mind that the phone didn’t launch until the very end of the quarter. Q2 should look significantly more promising for the South Korean vendor.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.