what to Samsung is the largest smartphone manufacturer in Brazil, that is undeniable. However, according to the Statcounterwhich analyzes the market in different segments, this month of April was the Apple who surprised by overcoming the Motorola and become the second largest in the Brazilian market. This is the first major change in the landscape in 2023.
Apple surpasses Motorola and is now the 2nd largest in Brazil
While Samsung squanders its leadership with its beautiful percentage of 40,76% this month of April, Motorola has been trying to hold the second place in the market. Since October 2022, and owner of the famous Moto G line saw Apple grow and start and threaten its post, but it was only now that this came to fruition.
Motorola closed the month of April with a percentage of 20,06% of the entire Brazilian market, the smallest participation since then. Apple, on the other hand, which has been growing more and more since at least July last year, overtook its arch-rival by reaching the share of 20,66%. Yes, the difference between the two companies is not that big, but enough for Apple to be called the second largest in Brazil right now.
What are the biggest cell phone companies in Brazil?
With the April results, the ranking of top 10 mobile phone manufacturers active in Brazil looked like this:
| Company | % in April | |
| 1 | Samsung | 40,76 |
| 2 | Apple | 20,66 |
| 3 | Motorola | 20,6 |
| 4 | Xiaomi | 12,87 |
| 5 | LG | 3,1 |
| 6 | ASUS | 0,72 |
| 7 | Realm | 0,24 |
| 8 | Nokia | 0,21 |
| 9 | Huawei | 0,14 |
| 10 | Others | 0,1 |
According to IDC, Motorola is ahead of Apple
The share of each company in a given market can be calculated based on several parameters, such as the number of sales made, the number of active devices or even the volume of devices that leave the factories for domestic consumption, as well as for exports. Different from what StatCounter says, the data collected by IDC point out that Motorola remains in second place and, for the time being, does not even feel threatened by Apple.
Since the data for the first quarter of 2023 has not yet been revealed, we can rely on information from the previous period. As the table below shows, Motorola closed the four quarters of 2022 with a percentage between 22.8% to 28.8%. Apple, in turn, had its greatest participation between the months of July and September, when it beat 7,7% em volume.
How does StatCounter data collection work?
StatCounter is a platform known worldwide for collecting data from different markets to point out the volume of market share of each company in different segments. The platform does not explain what methodology it uses to collect this data when it comes to the smartphone market, for example. On your website there is only one page which explains that “statistics are based on aggregated data collected by StatCounter on a sample of over 5 billion page views per month collected across StatCounter’s network of over 1.5 million websites.”
Oficina da Net questioned StatCounter about its methodology, but we still haven’t had an answer. If we receive a response, this article will be updated.
It is possible, but not confirmed, that the platform calculates each company’s volume by the number of active users or devices instead of based on the number of manufacturer sales. This would explain, for example, why LG still appears in fifth place in the monthly ranking, as the company left the smartphone market in April 2021.
Comparison with the same period last year
Compared to April 2022, we can see how the market was less competitive among the top three in the ranking. Samsung has already been the leader and with a lot of free time for a long time, but Motorola was not much different either since it had a difference of almost 10% more than Apple, in third place.
See the graph with the results between April 2022 and April 2023:
Source: StatCounter
