Apple beats Samsung in phone sales for the first time since 2016

Apple has knocked Samsung out to become the world’s leading seller of smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a new data report from research firm Gartner. Samsung has been selling out Apple since the same quarter in 2016.

Gartner estimates that Apple sold $ 79.94 million during the quarter, while Samsung was able to sell $ 62.17 million. Samsung did not release new flagship phones in that quarter. Apple’s sales were driven by the launch of the new iPhone 12 series, which typically sold better than last year’s iPhone updates. Apple sold 69.6 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2019.

However, this victory for Apple came amid an overall decline in the smartphone market. Total sales of smartphones decreased by 12.5 percent in 2020 and by 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter.

The lower decline rate in the quarter compared to the rest of the year is attributed to ‘sales of more 5G smartphones and smartphones from lower to mid-level’, according to Anshul Gupta of Gartner.

Samsung saw an overall decline in smartphone sales during 2020 by 14.6 percent, although the company was still the best smartphone seller during the year, despite Apple’s Q4 victory. Gartner notes that Samsung is experiencing stiff competition from Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo in many markets – which have grown over the years.

At the same time, a beleagured Huawei dropped the biggest sales of the year. Its sales fell 24.1 percent. Gupta said 2021 smartphone sales would be driven by adopting 5G phones outside China.

However, not all iPhone 12 models are sold equally. We reported earlier this month that the iPhone 12 mini shifts far fewer units than the iPhone 12 or even the iPhone 12 Pro – bad news for small phone lovers. Nevertheless, some analysts and sweets predict that the mini-size will return in the iPhone 13 series later this year.

List by Samuel Axon