iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Todd Haselton | CNBC
According to market research firm Gartner, Apple shipped more smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2020 than any other company.
Apple shipped nearly 80 million units in the quarter, surpassing all other smartphone makers, including Samsung. According to the report released on Monday, this is the first time Apple has been at the top since 2016.
Apple’s strong holiday quarter and the new Gartner results suggest that Apple’s family of iPhone 12 devices, with 5G capability and a new external design, is a hit on the market. The results also suggest that Apple is better able to withstand the coronavirus pandemic than its competitors for smartphones.
Last month, a competitive estimate said that Apple shipped 90.1 million phones during the same quarter, a figure that, according to IDC, was the market researcher’s best quarter in the history of the smartphone, judged by shipments.
Apple does not report unit sales for its devices. In the fourth quarter of calendar 2020, Apple reported $ 65.6 billion in iPhone sales, which is 17% higher than year-on-year. Apple’s business is seasonal and the quarter ending in December is the largest in terms of sales. Apple’s latest iPhones were not even on sale all quarter.
According to the report, the smartphone market declined by 5.4% in 2020 amid the global coronavirus pandemic, while Apple’s shipments grew by 3.3%. Samsung still shipped most devices over a year-long period.
The biggest drop on the table comes from Huawei, which shrank by 24.1% in 2020, although it was still the third largest smartphone maker by volume. Huawei is struggling with US sanctions that have significantly hampered its mobile business. According to Gartner, Samsung does not face the same challenge, but it still decreased by 14.6% in 2020.