The latest survey of phone manufacturers around the globe provides an interesting glimpse at how fast technology evolves. First, it’s worth noting that no smartphones were included in the poll. The idea was to assess the top 10 devices from around the globe, which included many top-end smartphones and smartphones with phones attached. There are many reasons for this. For instance, not every brand in the world has a product on the top of its range, as noted by Gigamp:
Rather, this is a survey of 10 device categories that are pretty broadly representative of the top 10 handsets in general. You’ll see a couple dozen brands within this list. The category designations, by the way, also follow the general naming convention you’ve probably already seen in previous smartphone reviews: For instance, the Lumia 1020 is the top-of-the-range Windows Phone, while the Windows 8 phone is Windows 8.1.
OK, so if phones weren’t counted, that leaves this as a top 10 list of the most popular phones in each of 10 countries around the globe. Each of these 10 countries, it turns out, had at least 10 phones in the top 10 from other countries that were mentioned as possibly being the top smartphone in the world. Here’s what the results looked like, in ascending order. This isn’t quite a complete list of all the phones from each country.
The cellphones that did make it in included:
The top-ranked smartphone (in China) is the Oppo F1 Plus, followed by the Vivo X9 Plus. (Apple was so afraid that its iPhone would get knocked out of top spot that it actually moved up one spot.) Other notable features of the Chinese smartphone:
The Top-selling phone in Egypt, Israel and Turkey
Top-selling phone in Brazil, Mexico, India and the Philippines
Best Top-selling phone in Portugal (where it made 10 phones in the top 10)
Topp-selling phone in Indonesia (2), India (1), and Turkey (2)
And interestingly, most phones on the list are smartphones, as opposed to mobile phones. This might be something of a shift in how we look at the world, which up until recently didn’t have many phones with pretty decent cameras (although it doesn’t look like the shift is happening fast enough to see that top smartphone feature make it into the top 10 in any of the top 10 countries).
This also reminds us that in many ways, the smartphone is not in a space of its own. Even though you can buy the top handset in the world, the smartphone is not the single phone that you own. You own multiple devices in different countries (you might even have multiple devices in the country you work in), and in many cases they’re likely to feature smartphones with hardware components from different manufacturers.
As an example, in most countries around the world, you might have a smartphone that runs Android. A very high-end smartphone. For many countries in the world, you might also have a smartphone that runs Windows. It might not be the top-of-the-range Windows phone that Microsoft produces, but it’s a phone that makes it into the top 10 list in some countries. That’s an important feature to note, as we look at the future of the smartphone. The future isn’t just about buying a top-of-the-range handset, and putting it in your pocket.
The cellphones on this list are just a selection of the top smartphones, of course. So maybe there is still more to come.
Top 10 Smartphone Brands in the World (as of January 2016)
Countries with phones in the top 10
Do you own one of the top smartphones in the world, or do you feel that your smartphone isn’t as fast or as slick as one of these ten (or more) phones?
To find out if your phone makes it into the top 10, let’s look at how to find out.
Editors’ note: The following is an excerpt from the Forbes article Top 10 Smartphones in the World. It is entirely possible that, as some of the lists mentioned below show, your top smartphone in the world is not in the list below. We’ve included this to show the effect of multiple lists, of different companies (and countries).
How to Find Out if Your Smartphone Is Top-Notch
If you’re looking for a top-of-the-range phone, you can always look at the specs, and see how your phone compare
For this, we’re using the website Statista. It’s a website that lets you see what top smartphones are selling for, and also looks at smartphone shipments for the top 10 countries. The lists of top smartphones come from different sources, with different ways of calculating the stats (see further down). But these lists include smartphones in the top 10 in many different countries, which helps us.
If you want to find out whether your phone is in the top ten in any country. Check the rankings below. (Note that many smartphone manufacturers publish “worldwide” numbers. But these tend not to be the top-selling figures, which we’re looking at here). The numbers don’t mean as much as they might on paper. We found top phone devices sold for $4,000-plus in the top 10 countries), but they can be useful if you’re trying to see how top phones are doing in the world, and which ones are selling well.
You can find the rankings for top smartphones by looking at these two different lists of top smartphones. (Which we’ve been showing in this article).
The first list (right) is based on the top ten most popular smartphones (mobile phones) in the world.
The second list (left) is based on the top ten phones sold (by shipment) in the top ten countries.
If you’re looking for a top smartphone, we’re showing both of the top lists below.
iPhone
The iPhone has the top-selling smartphone on most of the top-10 lists (excluding the Android smartphone list). That’s due to the fact that Apple doesn’t release any sales figures for its devices. It also allows users to purchase a top-of-the-range smartphone on a “top-of-the-range” phone. A top-of-the-range smartphone from Apple is almost certain to have an iPhone screen. While iPhone screen sizes have increased over time, the screen size doesn’t appear to have impacted sales.
iPhone 5
Samsung
The Samsung Galaxy S5 (right) was a top-of-the-range smartphone when it was released,
and remained so as time went by. The Galaxy S5 has a 5.1 inch screen, while the Galaxy S4 has a 4.8 inch screen.
