Top 5 Best-Selling Smartphone Brands of 2017, Based on Worldwide IDC and Strategy Analytics Data

Trusted and respected research firms International Data Corporation (IDC) and Strategy Analytics have both just posted their official list of the Top 5 Smartphone Vendors based on total global shipments.

Although the two companies employ different means of gathering data from across the planet, they had come up with practically the same list of top-selling handset brands for 2017.

Here's IDC's list:

And here's the one from Strategy Analytics:

And here's a side by side comparison each company's annual shipment figures as reported by the two research agencies:

Total Worldwide Smartphone Shipments in 2017
Brand	IDC	Strategy Analytics
1. Samsung	317.3	317.5
2. Apple	215.8	215.8
3. Huawei	153.1	153.0
4. OPPO	111.8	118.0
5. Xiaomi	92.4	91.3
Others	577.7	611.9
Total	1472.4	1507.5

Just a few notes:

1. Samsung remains to be the top selling smartphone brand in the world, a title that it's been holding since 2012, following the sharp decline of former world #1 Nokia.
2. Despite just being the #2 most prolific handset seller, Apple is the undisputed top earning smartphone maker worldwide;
3. Last year, Apple was able to amass a total revenue of $61.6 Billion USD from selling iPhones alone compared to Samsung Mobile's KRW 25.47 Trillion or $23.4 Billion USD revenues from Galaxy Android smartphones. (source 1, source 2)
4. Chinese brand Xiaomi got the biggest year-on-year increase in total shipments from 2016 to 2017 at an incredible 74.5%, which represents a stunning comeback from a falling off IDC's top 5 list in 2016. In stark contrast, Apple's year-on-year shipment increase within the past two years is just a measly 0.2%.
5. Other Chinese brands Huawei and OPPO show consistency in their standing in the top 5 as well as their annual total shipment increase.

(via)