Apple's $749 iPhone XR was the top selling smartphone in North America during the first quarter of 2019 according to new smartphone shipment data shared today by Canalys.
Apple shipped over 4.5 million iPhone XR devices during the quarter, and it made up 13 percent of total North American shipments. Samsung's Galaxy S10+ and Galaxy S10e were the other two most popular smartphones in Q1 2019, accounting for 6 percent of shipments each.
Though Apple's iPhone XR was the top selling smartphone in North America during the quarter, Apple still saw a 19 percent drop in year-over-year shipments.
Apple shipped 14.6 million devices in Q1 2019 in total, compared to 17.9 million devices shipped during the first quarter of 2018. Despite the drop, Apple managed to maintain 40 percent market share in North America, one of the regions where it sees strong performance.
Apple's fall in Q1 followed particularly high shipments of flagship iPhones in the previous quarter," said Canalys Research Analyst Vincent Thielke. "But there was a disconnect between channel orders and consumer demand, which then caused early shipments in Q1 to be challenging for Apple. But moving into March, we did see an uptick in iPhone XR shipments, an early sign that these challenges may be starting to ease at home. Apple has shown how vital trade-ins have become by moving the mechanism to the front and center of its ordering process, and it now frequently uses the net price in its flagship iPhone marketing. The momentum of trade-in promotions in Q2 and Q3 will determine the extent to which Apple can counter negative market forces, such as longer device lifecycles. But the key challenge in coming months remains that its latest iPhones are just not different enough, though new ones are on the way. For its performance to improve in 2020, Apple will need to emphasize radical new features that are most likely to impress consumers."
Samsung shipped 10.7 million devices for 29.3 percent market share, while LG shipped 4.8 million devices and Lenovo shipped 2.4 million devices. Overall North American smartphone shipments were down an estimated 18 percent during Q1 2019, totaling 36.4 million shipments.
Canalys believes that in order to better compete in 2020, Apple will need to launch devices with "radical new features" that will better appeal to consumers. Thus far, rumors suggest Apple's 2019 iPhones will be largely similar to the 2018 iPhones, but with major camera improvements that could draw in upgraders and new customers and better compete with devices like the Google Pixel with its Night Sight mode.
Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Thursday December 11, 2025 11:28 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21.
There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 are getting expanded support for Live Translation in the European Union in iOS...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. iOS 26.2 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Thursday December 11, 2025 10:31 am PST by Juli Clover
The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products.
Here's what's supposedly coming:
An improved pairing process, though no details were provided. AirTag pairing is already...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:08 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released macOS Tahoe 26.2, the second major update to the macOS Tahoe operating system that came out in September. macOS Tahoe 26.2 comes five weeks after Apple released macOS Tahoe 26.1.
Mac users can download the macOS Tahoe update by using the Software Update section of System Settings.
macOS Tahoe 26.2 includes Edge Light, a feature that illuminates your face with soft...
Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
One of my best friends has only ever bought LG phones since they started making them. He talks about them by model name as if everyone he encounters also follows phone models like sports teams and is at all familiar with what he's talking about, which they aren't. He's a network engineer.
He still uses a Yahoo mail account. ...which he paid/pays for. Imagine it, an IT professional, paying for a yahoo mail account... And he still listens to the cheesy music we listened to in high school. He has a beautiful doctor wife and 4 great kids. He owns nothing that would be considered a quality product, and is completely unable to understand the difference between a lovingly restored century old handmade wooden canoe and a rubber tupperware boat stamped out of a mold in china yesterday. He lives like John Belushi. None of us who've known him his entire life know what to make of any of these things.
You asked who's buying LG phones, well, that's the one I know.
A 19% decline in Apple’s most popular market should alarm Cook & Co. So it isn’t only China were things get rough. But it doesn’t surprise me either seen the lack of innovation coming from Apple compared to competitors.
Race to the bottom is not the answer. If all you are worried about is marketshare then Apple is not for you. Apple could control nearly the entire market if they sold $300 phones or as the other vendors do (give their phones away). Doing so would not help the bottom line and would impact R&D.
It's not a race to the bottom - it's a race to the middle. That's where all the unit volume is, which is critical for a company like Apple looking to expand their services revenue.
So they can give us numbers for the XR, S10+ and S10e, but they somehow don’t know the numbers for the XS, XS Max, S10, S9, iPhone 8 or any other models.
You forget Samsung who’s also winning... it’s concerning Apple is losing marketshare almost everywhere. The more because Apple’s marketshare isn't that big to begin with. Ultimately it will translate into a second class platform to invest in for developers, etc.
Yeah, not going to happen. Eric Schmidt predicted that back in Dec 2011 and it STILL hasn't come true. The idea that developers go for market share is a myth. They go where the money is. And 1 billion iOS devices are far more valuable than umpteen billions of $50 Android devices where owners never spend money. This is why the average iOS user generates 4X the revenue in The App Store as the average Android user does for Google Play.
Samsung is winning? Is that why Apples iPhone revenues were $31 billion and Samsung's ENTIRE mobile division (smartphones, feature phones, tablets and other mobile devices) only hit $23 billion? Or why Samsung operating profit was down a whopping 60% last quarter? Is that what you call "winning"?
