Samsung Electronics has taken over 80% of South Korea’s smartphone market for the first time, according to Counterpoint Research.

From January to July, Samsung’s market share reached 82%, up 4 percentage points year-on-year.

Samsung, based in South Korea, saw its shipments rise even as the country’s overall smartphone sales slightly dropped.

The rise was driven by the Galaxy S25 series and the Galaxy Z Fold7, both launched this year.

The Galaxy S25 series uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and its top model features a 200-megapixel camera.

The Galaxy Z Fold7 dropped the S pen slot to create a slimmer, lighter device, and improved hardware durability.

Mobile carrier subsidies helped offset a price rise for the Z Fold7.

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🔗 Source: The Korea Herald

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Home market dominance can exceed global performance by massive margins

Samsung’s 82% share in Korea dramatically outpaces its global smartphone position, demonstrating how local advantages compound in home markets.

Historically, Samsung became the second-largest mobile manufacturer globally in 2007 with just 14% market share1, yet now commands over four-fifths of its domestic market.

Even during Samsung’s peak global performance, when the Galaxy S4 captured 32.3% of the worldwide smartphone market after selling 10 million units in 30 days2, the company never approached the dominance it now enjoys at home.

This suggests that factors like local manufacturing, carrier relationships, marketing cultural alignment, and consumer familiarity create competitive advantages that are difficult for foreign competitors to overcome.

The advantage extends beyond just market share to product strategy. Samsung can tailor features like local payment integration and carrier subsidies more effectively in Korea than global competitors can match.

2️⃣ Smartphone market leadership can shift rapidly despite strong product cycles

Apple’s market share in Korea dropped from 25% in 2023 to 18% currently, despite the iPhone 15 achieving 49.5% higher first-week sales than its predecessor3.

This decline occurred even as Apple implemented strategic changes like including Korea in first-release countries and integrating local transit cards into Apple Pay3.

The shift highlights how smartphone competition operates in short cycles where even successful product launches don’t guarantee sustained market position.

Samsung’s ability to counter with the Galaxy S25 series—maintaining predecessor pricing while upgrading to Snapdragon 8 Elite chips—shows how quickly established players can respond to competitive threats.

The upcoming iPhone 17 launch mentioned could reverse this trend again, indicating that smartphone market share operates more like quarterly earnings than long-term market position.

Recent Samsung developments

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