Apple’s iPhone family has been seeing increased pricing with every passing year, with the iPhone X taking the cake thanks to its $999 tag. Still, consumers in the U.S. want to purchase iPhones, even though the overall market has dropped.

Apple’s iPhone Lineup Has Accounted for a 42 Percent Market in the U.S.

iPhone sales grew in the first quarter of 2018 even though the sales of smartphones overall went south. According to a new report from Counterpoint, the case in the U.S.was similar. Counterpoint data shows that even though the sales of smartphones fell by 11percentacross the market, iPhone displayed a year-on-year growth of 16percentin the first quarter of 2018.

Apple shipped a record-breaking 16 million unitsof its iPhoneXin the first quarter of 2018. Apple also managed to snag some market share away from Samsung when it comes to premium smartphones. Apple now accounts for 80percentof the sales of thedevices that are priced $800and above. Overall, Apple’s market share is 42percentin the U.S.,which isalmost twice that of Samsung, who commands 22percentof the market share.

Samsung’s sales decreased 4percentyear-on-year which reflect poorer sales of the company’s Galaxybrand ofphones. Apple’s super premium segment commanded 20percentof the total sales in the U.S.for the Q1. In contrast, Samsung only accounted for 8percentof the total sales.

Six of the ten best sellers in the U.S.are iPhones. However, since Counterpoint ranks them according to the storage variant, iPhone X secured two places. Initially, therewere lots of analysts and naysayers predictedthat that bezel-less flagship from the Cupertino tech giant was a failure and that the company would discontinue the phone. However, Apple managed to carve a super-premium niche and it now accounts for 28percentof U.S. market.

Counterpoint said that even though Galaxy S9 sales have been slow, they are expected to get better this quarter. This is because of incentives offered such as trade-in dealsand freebies

Lately, Apple has been receiving positive news from most market research firms. Strategic Analytics had crowned the iPhone X as the best-selling smartphone earlier this month. Additionally, Canalys said that more iPhones than any other smartphones were shipped to Europe.Last, but certainly not least, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, called the iPhone X a ‘Super Bowl’ winner.

News Source: Counterpoint Research