Smartphone sales remained soft, according to the market researcher, but the pace of decline (9%) was slower than in 2022.

"This does not necessarily indicate a significant recovery," Kantar warned, especially as the decline in sales in Australia and the US accelerated in 1Q23.

When it comes to sales of individual models, Apple dominated the charts.

In Australia, the rankings were iPhone 11, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 12.

The iPhone 11 was discontinued by Apple in 4Q22, so presumably Kantar's sales numbers reflect a stock clarance. The researcher attributes the strong sales to consumers "increasingly opting for lower-cost models", but then the number two selling smartphone was the top-of-the-line iPhone 14 Pro Max.

This seems to reflect two sub-markets: one on a budget and taking advantage of runout prices (perhaps to replace an older iPhone that has gone out of support), and another willing to pay a premium price for a premium phone.

Australia was the only market in Kantar's report where Android phones failed to make the top five.

The story in Kantar's 'European 5' – France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Great Britain – was somewhat different: iPhone 13, Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, Galaxy A13, iPhone 14 and iPhone 12.

Apple gained 2 percentage points of market share year-on-year in this region, with an impressive 6 points in Spain and 4 points in France. In both those countries iOS is traditionally the runner-up platform.

Furthermore, Kantar reported that Xiaomi's and Oppo's net promoter scores (NPS) has fallen significantly in the last three years (sitting at 18 and 20 respectively in March 2023), noting that sales and NPS are positively correlated.

More generally, "Rising costs are causing consumers to become more cautious and lose their appetite for
risk when it comes to choosing a smartphone brand, disproportionately affecting smaller challenger brands," said Kantar.

In the US, Apple's market share grew by 1 percentage point, and the top five were iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone 14 Pro, Galaxy A03s (a budget model priced at US$159.99) and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Kantar points to the attractiveness of Apple Pay's buy now pay later service and Apple Card's high-yield savings account, but the former started at the end of 1Q23 and the latter in 2Q23, so they would have had minimal effect on sales during the report period. If the company is right, then we can expect to see Apple selling even more iPhones in the US during the current quarter.

Apple performed fairly well in Asia, where the "market shows the most significant stabilisation trend".

In Mainland China, it lost 1 percentage point of market share, but recent iPhone models dominated the chart: iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 13, Huawei Nova 10, and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

The iPhone's share of the Japan market increased by 2 percentage points, but the top selling phone was the relatively inexpensive iPhone SE, followed by iPhone 14, iPhone 13, Google Pixel 6a and iPhone 14 Pro.