How Many iPhones Have Been Sold Worldwide?

With the iPhone being seemingly everywhere and so popular with so many people, you may have asked yourself: How many iPhones have been sold worldwide, all time?

Measures of Success

When he introduced the original iPhone, Steve Jobs said that Apple's goal for the first year of the iPhone was to capture 1% of the worldwide cellphone market. The company achieved that goal and now stands at somewhere between 20% and 40% of the market, depending on which country you're looking at.

Overall market share also isn't the only important measure of success. Apple, in particular, is interested in the high-end, high-profit, high-priced smartphone market. In that area, the company is much more successful. Apple earned almost 80% of the worldwide profit on smartphones in 2016. That means most other smartphone makers actually lost money on every phone they sold!

The total sales listed below include all iPhone models (starting with the original up through iPhone XS and XR) and are based on Apple's announcements. As a result, the numbers are approximate.

Tim Cook walking on stage in front of iPhone XS during an announcement.
Justin Sullivan / Staff / Getty Images

The sales figures listed in this article are likely to be the last official sales figures we'll have for a while. That's because Apple has stopped providing public sales figures for the iPhone, as of Nov. 2018. In some ways, this isn't that unusual: many of its competitors, such as Amazon and Google, don't provide specific, detailed sales figures for their top products. In other ways, though, this is a huge change. We'll now have less information about Apple's most popular product, which is also one of the most important tech products in the world. We'll see if Apple ever starts reporting iPhone sales figures again. If it does, we'll be sure to update this article.

Cumulative Worldwide iPhone Sales, All Time

Date Event Total Sales
Nov. 1, 2018 Apple announces it will
stop reporting iPhone sales figures
 
Nov. 1, 2018   2.2 billion
Oct. 26, 2018 iPhone XR released  
Sept. 21, 2018 iPhone XS and XS Max released  
May 1, 2018   2.12 billion
Nov. 3, 2017 iPhone X released  
Nov. 2, 2017   2 billion
Sept. 22, 2017 iPhone 8 & 8 Plus released  
March 2017   1.16 billion
Sept. 16, 2016 iPhone 7 & 7 Plus released  
July 27, 2016   1 billion
March 31, 2016 iPhone SE released  
Sept. 9, 2015 iPhone 6S & 6S Plus announced  
Oct. 2015   773.8 million
March 2015   700 million
Oct. 2014   551.3 million
Sept. 9, 2014 iPhone 6 & 6 Plus announced  
June 2014   500 million
Jan. 2014   472.3 million
Nov. 2013   421 million
Sept. 20, 2013 iPhone 5S & 5C released  
Jan. 2013   319 million
Sept. 21, 2012 iPhone 5 released  
Jan. 2012   319 million
Oct. 11, 2011 iPhone 4S released  
March 2011   108 million
Jan. 2011   90 million
Oct. 2010   59.7 million
June 24, 2010 iPhone 4 released  
April 2010   50 million
Jan. 2010   42.4 million
Oct. 2009   26.4 million
June 19, 2009 iPhone 3GS released  
Jan. 2009   17.3 million
July 2008 iPhone 3G released  
Jan. 2008   3.7 million
June 2007 Original iPhone released  

Has Apple Reached Peak iPhone?

Despite the iPhone's terrific success over the last decade, its growth seems to be slowing. This has led some observers to suggest that we've reached "peak iPhone," meaning that the iPhone has achieved its maximum market size and will shrink from here.

Needless to say, Apple doesn't believe that (or, at least, doesn't want to believe it). To prevent the phone's sales from stagnating, the company has made a number of strategic moves with its products.

First, it released the iPhone SE, with its 4-inch screen, to expand the iPhone's market share. Apple found that a large number of its current users haven't upgraded to the larger iPhone models and that in the developing world 4-inch phones are particularly popular. In order for Apple to keep growing the size of the iPhone market, it needs to win over larger numbers of users in developing countries like India and China. The SE, with its smaller screen and lower price, was designed to do that. 

Additionally, the company has pushed the high end of the iPhone line even higher, with new innovations like the Face ID facial recognition system and nearly edge-to-edge screen, both of which were introduced on the iPhone X and were later improved with the iPhone XS and XR.

Sales Dip Continues

Those moves haven't proved to be enough, though, and iPhone sales are starting to slide. In fact, CEO Tim Cook issued a statement in early 2019 that iPhone sales were lower than the company had expected.

The causes of this sales dip are complex and include tariffs on goods manufactured in China (like the iPhone) that are out of Apple's control, but many observers are concerned that the decade of runaway iPhone sales is coming to an end.

Want to learn more about the sales histories of other major Apple products? Check out This is the Number of iPods Sold All-Time and What Are iPad Sales All Time?

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