Apple's iPhone XR Was Most Popular Smartphone in 2019 Based on Shipment Estimates

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The takeaways are that people want to pay less for a smartphone, that flagships are not as important as they used to be and that not all flagship features are important. Things have changed.

Flag ship smart phones are not as popular as they used to be due to the price point, not because the amount of features they have today. Look at a smart phone let’s say five years ago compared to today, it’s amazing to see all the new features and how powerful the smart phones are today in our hands, but; consumers don’t care about the latest features, because the inflation of the smart phones is unobtainable for some, when they would rather just have a cheaper smart phone that executes the most simple tasks of communication and incorporates a decent camera, which is why the iPhone XR/11 is so popular.

 

[tex210]

While we are talking about strange trains of thought: Actually Apple _does_ sell „a modern smaller-screened iPhone”. It’s a bit weak on battery and CPU power, lacks cameras and its usability is questionable at times, due to the really small screen. But it is wildly popular with people. It’s called “Apple Watch LTE”. :-D

But you need a separate phone and line. If it wasn’t required, i’d be there with ya.

 

[JBGoode]

I've yet to see a single XR in the wild.

You must stay home a lot. I see them everywhere.
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Not a shock. Americans love cheap plastic.

What does this even mean? The Xr is glass....

 

[Shanghaichica]

It’s amazing how successful the XR and 11 are. However it’s understandable when you consider the price and the features you get if you want a phone that runs iOS.
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I'm not surprised by Apple's performance on this list.

Apple is the #3 smartphone OEM in the world by sales... so they obviously sell a lot of phones in general. Plus they only sell a handful of individual models... and it makes sense that their affordable iPhone XR had the top spot.

But what is a surprise is that not a single "flagship" Samsung phone is on that list.

For all the advertising Samsung does... and all the hullabaloo about cameras, OLED displays, reverse wireless charging, tiny bezels, etc... it's their budget models that sell the most.

A phone had to sell at least 15.2 million units to even be on this list.

So that means no Galaxy S10 model sold 15.2 million units throughout the entire year. That's wild.

I think there has been a shift from the flagship phones to the mid range phones. If you look back to 2018 the S9 and S9+ made the top 10. These are flagships . Last year Samsung made a huge effort to improve the quality of their midrange phones so that they could compete with the likes of Xiaomi and one plus in markets like India and to soften the blow in places like China.