Here's what iPhone sales have been each year since the first model came out
The iPhone 7, all told, is an incremental upgrade. After a year of fading sales, the common wisdom going into Apple's earnings report this week was that the company hadn't done enough to trigger a turnaround.
It was something of a surprise, then, when Apple beat expectations, and surpassed its all-time record for iPhone sales in a single quarter. As this chart from Statista shows, the 78.29 million units Apple sold in its first quarter beat its year-ago figure by nearly 4 million.
According to research firms IDC and Strategy Analytics, the boost was enough to take Apple above Samsung in terms of global smartphone market share.
It was a good result, but there's a pretty important catch: The quarter included an extra week. Without that bump, things might look slightly less impressive. Either way, all eyes are still focused on the fall, when Apple is expected to launch a redesigned, higher-tech version of its flagship device.
