Samsung shipped the most smartphones last year, beating Apple

Best phone
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Smartphone shipments the world over grew by 12% in 2015, reaching a record high of 1.4 billion devices over the 12 month period – and Samsung still sits on top with the most devices.

Samsung shipped 320 million smartphones last year, slightly up on the 317 million it put out in 2014. Apple shipped 231 million devices in 2015, a big jump from the 193 devices of the year before.

Huawei jumped into third place for the first time, beating out Lenovo/Motorola. In 2014 the Chinese manufacturer sent out 74 million devices; in 2015 year it shipped 107 million, an impressive leap that's partly down to a big boost in brand recognition as well as a stronger position in the mid-tier market.

A good year

Fourth place went to Lenovo and Motorola which dropped for the first time, from the 93 million phones shipped in 2014 down to 74 million in 2015.

Xiaomi took the fifth place position with 72 million devices in 2015, up from the 61 million in 2014. All the other manufacturers had a combined 637 million shipments in 2015, up on 2014's 546 million.

The figures come from a report by Strategy Analytics, a firm that has tracked smartphone sales for a number of years.

Overall in 2014, 1283 million phones were sold from all manufacturers combined, a total that jumped to 1442 million in 2015.

Even if you're not happy about Samsung being the most popular smartphone manufacturer in 2015, we can all agree that phones are the winner here. And we all love phones, right?

Via Engadget

James Peckham

James is Managing Editor for Android Police. Previously, he was Senior Phones Editor for TechRadar, and he has covered smartphones and the mobile space for the best part of a decade bringing you news on all the big announcements from top manufacturers making mobile phones and other portable gadgets. James is often testing out and reviewing the latest and greatest mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets, virtual reality headsets, fitness trackers and more. He once fell over.