Top 20 most popular phones of the year 2025

Contents

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Rank: 1
Samsung Galaxy A56 Rank: 2
Xiaomi Poco X7 Pro Rank: 3
Samsung Galaxy S25 Rank: 4
apple iphone 17 pro max Rank: 5
Samsung Galaxy A36 Rank: 6
oneplus 13 Rank: 7
Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G (Global) Rank: 8
Samsung Galaxy A16 Rank: 9
apple iphone 16e Rank: 10
Honor X9c Rank: 11
Xiaomi 15 Ultra Rank: 12
Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 4G (Global) Rank: 13
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge Rank: 14
Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G (Global) Rank: 15
techno camon 40 pro 5g Rank: 16
Infinix Hot 50 Pro+ 4G Rank: 17
apple iphone 17 air Rank: 18
Xiaomi Redmi Turbo 4 Pro Rank: 19
Vivo iQOO 13 Rank: 20

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may receive commission from qualifying sales.

apple iphone 17 pro max

These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may receive commission from qualifying sales.

Samsung Galaxy A56

These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may receive commission from qualifying sales.

Xiaomi Poco X7 Pro

These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may receive commission from qualifying sales.

As 2025 comes to an end, we take a look at the most popular phones of the year. Here are the top 20 phones you searched for the most in the last 12 months – we’re including phones launched in November 2024, because it wouldn’t be fair to give them only less than a quarter of the time to climb the ranks.

Is this list what you expected? It’s certainly no surprise to see some of these phones in the top 20, but some unexpected models made it in as well. Additionally, there are industry trends around 4G/5G and foldables that we need to talk about.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra claimed the top spot by a wide margin and we expected that – it was the most popular Galaxy S generation of the last few years and the Ultra, as is usually the case, outshone its siblings. Not “their combined sales” this time, but it’s still the bulk of sales.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max

Similarly, Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max was expected to be in the top 5. It came with a major new design and the old Pro design was becoming outdated. The advanced telephoto and selfie cameras were good reasons to upgrade, though the scratch-prone aluminum body gave some people pause.

Samsung’s mid-range A-series is as strong as ever and the Galaxy A56 coming in second place is proof of that. The Galaxy A36 at #6 and the Galaxy A16 at #9 show that Samsung successfully caters to multiple price segments.

Samsung Galaxy A56 • Samsung Galaxy A36 • Samsung Galaxy A16

By the way, this is the 4G Galaxy A16. There were two more – Redmi Note 14 4G and Infinix Hot 50 Pro+ 4G. Three 4G phones in the top 20 for 2025 sounds like a lot, right? It was one of those things we didn’t expect. All three phones have OLED displays (6.67″ to 6.78″ in size), have IP54 rating and use almost the same chipsets (Helio G99 and G100). All three have microSD slots, but only the Redmi has a higher resolution camera (108MP) and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Redmi Note 14 4G • Infinix Hot 50 Pro+ 4G

Here’s another thing we didn’t expect – the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is #14 and the Apple iPhone 17 Air is #18. Neither company has shared official sales results, but industry reports suggest both had poor sales. And we don’t even need to tell you about the negative online reaction towards these two.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge (vs. S25 Ultra on the left) • Apple iPhone 17 Air

There was only one other iPhone in the top 20 and it’s another surprise – the iPhone 16e. Generally, the vanilla iPhone of the year is one of the most popular because it has a good interplay between price and capabilities. But this year it’s nowhere to be seen, replaced by the less-cheap and clearly less-capable 16e.

Apple iPhone 16e • Poco X7 Pro

We know from reading the comments that the Poco X7 Pro is a popular device and its ranking at #3 is a great achievement. This exemplifies the value for money principle that Poco is so well known for and has been selling basically below MSRP this entire time.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 is the only small phone on this list – there’s no iPhone 17/17 Pro, no Pixel 10 Pro, no vivo X200 FE or OnePlus 13s. Are small phones popular? Or is the S25 just a cheaper Galaxy S model? To be fair, it was quite popular at #4 and its size may have been a factor – despite not being more expensive we don’t see the S25+ on this list.

Samsung Galaxy S25 (and its bigger siblings) • OnePlus 13

The OnePlus 13 may go down in history as the last great OnePlus flagship. Or maybe the 15 will overcome the doubts raised at launch and win over people over the next 12 months.

The Redmi Note 14 Pro and Redmi Note 14 Pro+ weren’t as popular as the Poco X7 Pro, but the 200MP camera definitely drew the crowds. The more powerful Redmi Turbo 4 Pro attracted interest with its Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset and 7,550mAh battery.

Redmi Note 14 Pro • Redmi Note 14 Pro+

Was the Xiaomi 15 Ultra the best camera phone of 2025? It was definitely better than the Galaxy S25 Ultra and it is the most popular among other Ultra phones.

IQOO 13

Xiaomi 15 Ultra • iQOO 13

Honor

The Tecno Camon 40 Pro also deserves praise – the Camon series focuses on premium-feeling phones on a budget, hence the curved 6.78” OLED display (a 144Hz panel at that).

techno camon 40 pro

Finally, iQOO 13 may be in the #20 spot, but we believe it would have been higher than that if iQOO had released it in more markets. This is a Snapdragon 8 Elite phone that doesn’t break the bank and has a good set of cameras. If iQOO had a wider presence in the market, OnePlus would have been in trouble.

That’s it, all twenty phones are in this year’s top 20. Do you notice what’s missing? Well, Android’s favorite baby, the Pixel, is nowhere to be seen, but that’s to be expected. But there is not a single foldable phone in this list. Not one.

You would think that with all the promos Motorola is running on the Razr Phone, Samsung’s first Z Flip FE, the vastly improved and extremely popular Z Flip7, and the Z Fold7, at least one of them would be on this list. Not to mention foldables from Xiaomi, Honor, vivo and others. The foldable market grew 14% in the third quarter and Samsung set sales records. It seems that foldables still have a special place.