The secret of iPhone's superiority Apple designs its phones internally without external help
A new report from market research firm Counterpoint has revealed the extent of reliance on external design in the smartphone industry, highlighting companies that rely heavily on external parties to design their devices, with Apple being a unique exception.
Motorola topped the list with a whopping 90% of its smartphone designs outsourced in the first half of 2024, followed by Xiaomi with 78% of its designs outsourced, and Vivo with 52%.
The report expects this trend to continue, as estimates indicate that the smartphone exterior design market will grow by 6% during the first half of 2024.
This growth is mainly attributed to the significant rise in popularity of budget and mid-range phones from Chinese brands.
As for other major companies, the data shows that Huawei relies on external design for 44% of its devices, while the percentage for Honor and Oppo is about 40%.
Apple is the only exception among major companies, as it relies on its own internal designs 100%, and it has complete control over all stages of iPhone design. As for Samsung, it uses external designs at a rate of 22%, and this rate is heading down, according to data available during the first half of 2024.
The report attributes this shift by Samsung to two main factors: the first is the decline in its market share in the economic and medium categories, which are categories that rely more on external design. The second factor is Samsung’s increasing reliance on its factories in India to manufacture economic devices.