Has the UK finally fallen out of love with the iPhone? Apple’s share of mobile phone market shatters to eight-year low

Apple’s share of Britain’s mobile phone market has slumped to an eight-year low, figures suggest.

Although still dominant, the tech titan’s grip has fallen well below the 50 per cent mark in 2024.

Now Apple has only a 12-point lead over arch-rivals Samsung.

Fans have for years fumed about the Silicon Valley firm’s lack of innovation. Experts have said that the market has squeezed to saturation and top of the line options are ten a penny, eating into Apple’s dominance. 

After months of fevered anticipation, Apple’s latest iPhone model last week went on sale worldwide.

It described the 16 (which retails for £799), 16 Plus (£899), 16 Pro (£999) and 16 Pro Max (£1,199) as ‘the beginning of a new era’, boasting of improved AI capabilities, camera upgrades and an upgrade in battery life. 

The new models also come packed with a button that activates the camera app – a feature described as the ‘coolest ever’ by Apple lovers. 

But leading figures in the industry criticised the underwhelming final product, which comes without the hugely-anticipated ‘Apple Intelligence’ AI ecosystem.

The software might not be available until the start of 2025.

Features of Apple Intelligence will include better writing tools, Photo Memories, the Clean Up tool, automatically transcribed audio, summarised notifications and smart replies. It will also adapt Siri to utilise Open AI’s notorious chatbot, ChatGPT, and AI-powered emoji generation.

Major tech reviewers The Verge dubbed Apple’s newest phone ‘the most unfinished product it has ever shipped’. One former US employee even brutally described it as ‘s***’, claiming the firm was ‘stuck in a loop’.

Signs of lower-than-anticipated demand – evident by quicker delivery times than for previous models – saw the company’s shares fall by 3 per cent. 

Consumers are spoiled for choice in terms of viable alternatives for a smartphone to match any conceivable criteria.

Samsung and Google continue to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into development and are consistently unveiling new models in the UK with more bells and whistles. 

Many already have some, if not most, of the AI capabilities – or relevant equivalents – that Apple Intelligence is set to boast.

Apple’s share of the UK mobile phone market stood at 46 per cent in August, claims online data aggregator StatCounter. 

It plunged to 43.9 per cent in July – marking its lowest point since September 2016.

Samsung now controls a third of the market (33.8 per cent), up from less than 1 per cent in 2010, when comparative records began. 

Google (4.6 per cent) and Motorola (3.1 per cent) also hold notable slices of the pie.

StatCounter embeds tracking technology on more than 1.5million partner websites globally and aggregates data from them to calculate mobile market share. 

From a price perspective, Apple iPhones on release still rank towards the top end. Though Samsung’s big release this year, the S24 and S24 Ultra, retail for £799 and £1,249, respectively.  

However, pricing around standard and premium models has remained consistent over recent years as, by and large, has the delivery of new models and system upgrades.

When the first iPhone launched in 2007, it was all about forcing consumer upgrades every two years, revamping the phone’s design aligning with consumers looking to cash in their upgrades.

Since then, Apple has released new iPhone models and iOS updates annually.

Ernest Doku, mobiles expert at price comparison site Uswitch.com, told MailOnline that the reportedly subdued demand for the latest models has been noticed in the market.

He said: ‘While demand for the iPhone 16 at launch is reportedly lower than its predecessors – our data shows many opting for earlier, now cheaper, models too – we’re unlikely to see the death of the iPhone entirely any time soon.

‘But with all manner of hardware innovations, compounded with rising costs, improved durability and sustainability driving longer usage of older devices, Apple does have its work cut out in capturing – or recapturing – the hearts and minds of those looking for a fresh smartphone experience.’

Jeremy White, Wired Magazine’s senior innovation editor, concurred and told MailOnline the iPhone 16’s launch landed less of a punch than usual.

He said: ‘It’s no surprise that a lot of people thought that the iPhone 16 was going to be a super cycle year for iPhones – when you see a massive uptick of people trading in and getting the new one.

‘But because a lot of the technology with the 16 is linked to the AI capabilities, that super cycle argument is negated to some extent.

‘If you’re interested in the AI features you might wait until the 17.’

But Mr White explained that the wider play from the company is to continue to build Apple into all aspects of a consumer’s life, merging the brand experience with the consumer.

He added: ‘The Apple ecosystem is the killer app that they have and the idea that everything talks to each other is not only very useful but it’s like a gateway drug that leads you to buy other products.’

Mr White noted that in the UK ‘the options are unbelievable because ‘you can get an amazing smartphone for a few hundred quid’. 

‘The tech in smartphones is advanced, mature, even the mid-level and budget players have got many of the desirable features – that’s going to erode anybody’s position,’ he said.

‘But Apple is traditionally slow to bring in tech others already have – come last, come best.

‘Don’t forget, when they launched the Apple watch, the smartwatch market was a joke and derided, they legitimised it and they have tremendous ability to do that in other sectors as well,’ he added.

‘You’d be a fool to write them off.’

Apple declined to comment.