It’s not news to anyone that the world of smartphones is dominated by Apple and Samsung, and to a certain extent also by Xiaomi, with some other manufacturers investing heavily in conquering their own space, as is the case with HONOR and OPPO.
However, the best-selling device of all time does not belong to any of these brands. In fact, it is a device that simply does not belong to this era of devices.
This is the cell phone that sold the most on a global scale!
Therefore, at this moment, after having already discovered that the cell phone with the highest sales numbers does not belong to any of the dominant brands in the current market, it is very likely that your head is already running away to the iconic Motorola and Nokia, and well!
Because we are actually talking about Nokia 1100an extremely simple cell phone that has sold more than 250 million units since its original launch.
Why this success? Very simple! Good and extremely cheap! It was a cell phone made for the masses.
Well, the Nokia 1100 was originally launched in 2003, and was most likely a device you’ve seen somewhere on the street, but who didn’t care, because it was something so simple, and in reality it didn’t even stand out for being beautiful. Ugly? Not necessarily! The appearance is always debatable.
The Nokia 1100 was a device that managed to achieve all the basics, and therefore, whether beautiful or ugly, it was a tremendous success.
After all, we are talking about a device with a 96 * 65 monochrome screen, dustproof, water resistant, capable of sending or receiving text/voice messages, flashlight, alarm, games (Snake II), and 1 week.
It’s funny, because the vast majority of news and excitement is almost always around the latest, most powerful and most beautiful devices. However, on the sales side, it is the cheapest devices, with some associated quality, that are a real success! This is exactly why the best-selling smartphone on earth is always the cheapest Galaxy A, in the case of 2023, it was the Galaxy A14 4G.
Are there other successes?
Yes, there are other devices that were also able to break the 200 million units sold barrier. As is the case with the Nokia 1110, a model very similar to the one mentioned above, but a little more modern. This is also the case with the Motorola RAZR V3, one of the most popular and iconic “clamshell” smartphones.
On the smartphone side, the biggest seller was Apple with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Devices that, combined, reached 220 million units sold. (Which is exactly why Apple bet on this design for so many years, and even recycled it for the iPhone SE).