Samsung and Apple dominate the best-selling smartphone OEMs in Q3 2025, according to Counterpoint.
According to Counterpoint, both Apple and Samsung captured 5 spots each in the 10 best smartphone list in the previous quarter.
However, there is a twist to this story. The top 4 slots were dominated by Apple only. Samsung took position 5 to position 9 and Apple finished with position 10.
The iPhone 16 was the best-selling smartphone by a considerable margin in Q3, followed by the 16 Pro, then the 16 Pro Max and the 16e closed the top 4 slot. The iPhone 16 led the market with 4% volume share and it has maintained its top position for the third consecutive quarter.
The Samsung Galaxy A16 5G was the best-selling Samsung phone at position 5 with the A06, A36, A56 and the A16 4G following in that order. Counterpoint expects the mid price segment for Samsung to remain strnog driven by growing integration of GenAI features. In Latin America, Middle East and Africa, Counterpoint says that the Galaxy A16 4G and Galaxy A06 contribute over half of the sales volume for each model.
Interestingly enough, the new iPhone 17 Pro Max that was released in September took the 10th spot, and for a phone that starts at $1,200, that is mighty impressive. Counterpoint says the 17 Pro Max was able to this despite limited availability towards end of the quarter and it was pushed by COVID-era buyers looking for a replacement.
The Q3 2025 data is slightly different from what Counterpoint found for Q3 2024. In Q3 2024, the top selling smartphones were the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, Galaxy A15 4G, Galaxy A15 5G, Galaxy A05, Redmi 13C 4G, Galaxy A35, iPhone 14 and the Galaxy S24. The lack of the flagship Galaxy S25 or any other Xiaomi, vivo and OPPO smartphone in the top 10 is quite telling.
The other interesting tidbit from the report is that 5G smartphones captured the top 5 spots for the first time in a third quarter which shows the maturation of the 5G standard across markets.
