How many phones did Apple, Honor, Motorola, Samsung, Xiaomi and others sell in Romania and what market shares do they have

I recently saw a presentation about the mobile phone market in Romania, with very good statistics about market shares, the number of units sold and their value.

And since I love statistics, I took detailed notes. The values ​​below are for the calendar year 2023 and their evolution is compared to 2022.

In Romania, almost 3.5 million mobile phones were sold in 2023 (less than in 2022) with a total value of 1.5 billion euros (up from 2022).

The Romanian phone market is led by 1️⃣ Samsungwith 46% market share, but down from 53% in 2022. If I’m not mistaken, Samsung also had a decline in 2022 compared to 2021.

By value, Samsung has 41% of the total market, down from 45%. A quick calculation therefore says that Samsung sold around 1.6 million phones with a VAT value of 615 million euros.

In 2nd place is 2️⃣ Apple, which rose to 17.5% from 15%. That’s about 580,000 phones sold. In terms of market value, however, Apple is number 1 with a share of 41.2%, slightly ahead of Samsung. It means approximately 620 million euros.

To have 17% of sales but 41.2% of market value is remarkable. The explanation is, of course, that Apple sells expensive phones (iPhone 15 Pro Max review), while Samsung also sells a lot of lower-value A3x and A5x, not just the S24 Ultra (review).

Adding up, it turns out that Samsung and Apple have a total of 63.5% of the market and 82% of the money in Romania.

In the 3rd place is 3️⃣ Xiaomei, with 9.7% market share in sales (340,000 units), but down from 11%. In terms of value, their decrease was from 6.3% to 5%, collecting 70 million euros.

4️⃣ Motorola blowing their necks, with a market share of 9.2% last year, up from 6%. By value, however, Motorola has 3.5% of the market. I expect it to increase as the new Edge 50 range of phones is very good value for the storage offered.

Want to guess the 5th place in the market? It iseeee…. 5️⃣ Honoré, which grew from “too small to put numbers on the chart” to 4.9% market share in terms of units sold. Their value is around 3%.

I am not surprised at their growth. They also came in force with marketing budgets. If you look at Victoriei, they even have a big billboard set up there, plus banners and ads all over the place.

Those who have tested the Honor Magic6 Pro say it is a very good phone, the Lite is also good value. My estimate is that they will increase in 2024 by at least 4 percentage points.

6th place belongs to him Oppo, which fell from 4.5% to 4%. My guess is that Oneplus is also included here.

In the “others” category, with values ​​too small to be displayed, Huawei has fallen by 39% in the past year. By my reckoning that gives them a 1.9% market share in 2023. The new Pura 70s look good and at least the Ultra has a great main camera, the tests say, but I think people want Google services and the whole Play store , they want it easily accessible and they want apps to be interconnected and fully functional after installing them with just two taps on the screen.

I think even die-hard fans of Huawei phones have started to prefer other phones, hence the decline. Of all the brands mentioned here, Huawei saw the biggest YoY decline.

They are also decreasing Realme, Nokia, Ihunt, Alcatel, all with market shares between 1 and 1.8%. I’m sorry to see that Realme doesn’t catch more than that, they seem like a very good option to me (Realme 12 Pro review).

Asus doesn’t even make the list either Google Pixel, Sony or Live. But it still exists ZTEwhich sells phones to some operators, but with a market share of around 1.5%.

An important detail to note is that the values ​​above are averages for the entire year. For example, Honor ended 2023 with an average market share of 4.9%, but in January 2023 it had about 3%, and in December about 7%, after steady growth all year.

The month-to-month variation is quite large for all manufacturers, in fact, depending on when they release popular models. For example, Apple jumped to 22.6% in December when the iPhone 15 became easy to find, even though it officially averages 17.5% for the whole year. Similarly, Samsung has a boost in February and March when the new Ss are released, and in the summer when the A series reaches more suitable prices and also releases some foldables.

Xiaomi also grew slightly in the last months of the year, and Motorola had a similar big increase in the last quarter, even reaching 13.4% market share in December. Oppo had a much better H2 than the H1.

As an average value, our market remains dominated by models between 150 and 300 euros including VAT, with a share of 33%, but decreasing from 43%.

This actually means that more people have turned to more expensive phones, with the 300-450 euro range increasing, as well as the 800-1,000 euro range.

The biggest increase was in the range over 1,000 euros, from 8 to 13 percentage points. That corresponds with the fact that Apple’s sales increased, but the Samsung S23 Ultra and Fold5 also sold well.

I remind you the top mobile phones as hits on this blog in 2023:

If we do as in the market studies above and gather Oppo with OnePlus, the result is a top of Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, Motorola. Honor is very low in readership, though I don’t understand why. So let’s do a survey here too, in this article. Choose your mobile phone below: