Let's Connect the Dots to These Holdings as Apple Gains Smartphone Share in Q1
Adoption of organic light-emitting diode display technology is accelerating in key markets such as TV and smartphone, and unfolding in newer ones.
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Early Wednesday morning ahead of quarterly earnings after the bell from Qualcomm QCOM and Thursday from Apple AAPL and Universal Display OLED, research firm Canalys published its Q1 2025 smartphone market report. As a reminder, the December quarter tends to be seasonally strongest of the year for smartphones, and we typically see a sequential double-digit decline in the March quarter.
For Q1 2025, industry volumes rose modestly to 296.9 million units, falling 10% compared to Q4 2024. From a geographic perspective, U.S. smartphone sales during the quarter rose 12%, followed by mid-single-digit gains in China and Africa, while India, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East all contracted low-to-mid-single digits.
Looking at the chart above, the figures indicate Apple’s iPhone volumes climbed 13% year over year leading to market-share gains, something we attribute to consumers continuing to lean into premium smartphone models and the staged rollout of Apple Intelligence. That bodes well for Qualcomm and Universal Display as does Samsung SSNLF calling out its S25 premium smartphone as a key driver in its March-quarter results earlier today.
Samsung said it continues to see strong sales of that device ahead, and it will soon launch its S25 Edge model, leaning further into flagship models that include AI. We see this helping foster the rise of consumer AI use, which ties back to our larger thinking about networking congestion and one of the reasons why we own Marvell Technology MRVL shares in the TheStreet Pro Portfolio.
Guidance from Taiwan Semiconductor TSM should give us some comfort in guidance from Apple and Qualcomm, however, we are still waiting to hear more from President Trump on tariffs for smartphones, PC, and other devices. The expectation is they will be less than the 145% on other China products, but how much less is still to be determined. That could lead to both companies delivering wider-than-typical guidance for the June quarter, one that is typically a slower for the smartphone market. For Apple, the mix shift toward the higher-margin Services business is not to be forgotten.
OLED and Organic Light Emitting Diode Displays
Building on positive organic light emitting diode comments from LG Display LG, Samsung shared that major customers of its display business are launching 27” monitors utilizing the display technology. Samsung Display also said it is seeing the technology adoption in mainstream monitor models and more smartphone models as well as automotive applications, which supports other data we’ve seen this year. Display company BOE offered a firmer outlook, expecting to ship 170 million organic light-emitting diode display units this year, up from 140 million last year.
On the automotive front, we saw another proof point for the adoption of organic light-emitting diode technology in the 2025 Genesis GV80, which you can see below.
In looking at that display, we should remember the larger the surface area, the more in demand for Universal Display’s solutions.
Management at Universal Display tends to give overly conservative guidance, and given pending tariff comments above we could see that yet again. However, it is clear the adoption of organic light-emitting diode display technology is accelerating in key markets, such as TV and smartphone, and unfolding in newer ones. That is what keeps us long-term bullish on OLED shares.
As Apple, Qualcomm, and Universal Display report their quarters and update their guidance, we’ll adjust our price targets as required.
At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long QCOM, AAPL, MRVL and OLED.
