iPhone 17 Becomes the World's Best-Selling Phone in the First Quarter of 2026

IPhone 17 is the world's best-selling mobile phone (photo: dok. Apple)

JAKARTA - The latest report from Counterpoint Research reveals that the iPhone 17 is the best-selling phone in the first quarter of 2026. The phone holds a 6 percent market share of sales in the world.

This achievement shows that the standard iPhone 17 model managed to shift the position of its brother, namely the 17 Pro Max model, which had dominated the market share at the end of last year. Now, the more expensive phone occupies the second and third positions in the sales list.

If you look at the overall sales list, Apple looks very dominant because its three phones are much better than other models. Of the ten phones, the standard iPhone 17 model to the Pro Max accounts for 25 percent of total sales.

The high sales rate of the iPhone 17 is driven by the increased features brought by the device. Apple provides updates on camera resolution, screen refresh rate, and wider basic storage capacity.

Counterpoint Senior Analyst, Harshit Rastogi, also highlighted Apple's growth in regions such as China and the US. In addition, sales in South Korea are known to have tripled compared to the previous period.

"The iPhone 17 continues to outperform its predecessor thanks to (a number of) improvements .... Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Max and Pro occupy the next two positions, offering more advanced capabilities across cameras, batteries, and new colors, materials, and finishes," said Rastogi, quoted from 9to5mac on Tuesday, May 5.

If Apple is superior with its expensive phones, Samsung actually entered the list of the 10 best-selling phones in the first quarter of this year with the Galaxy A series. The Galaxy S series, including the S26 Ultra, did not enter the list.

In addition to Apple and Samsung, devices from Xiaomi are also included in the sales list. The phone is the Redmi A5 which occupies the last position.