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Feb 22, 2021, 12:46pm EST | 14,978 views
Apple Beats Samsung For Top
Smartphone Vendor Globally,
Selling 80M iPhones Last
Quarter
John Koetsier
Senior Contributor
Consumer Tech
John Koetsier is a journalist, analyst, author,
and speaker.
Listen to article 2 minutes
Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of...
[+]
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Apple sold almost 18 million more smartphones
than previous leader Samsung in the last
quarter of 2020, according to Gartner.
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Apple sold 79.9 million iPhones to Samsung’s
62.1 million in a massive change from 2019’s
numbers, capturing 21% of global market share.
That’s up 15% from the previous year, while
Samsung dipped 12% on strong competition
from Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo.
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Total smartphone sales for Q4 2020 were down
5.4%, however.
“The sales of more 5G smartphones and lowerto-mid-tier smartphones minimized the market
decline in the fourth quarter of 2020,” Anshul
Gupta, senior research director at Gartner, said
in a statement. “Even as consumers remained
cautious in their spending and held off on some
discretionary purchases, 5G smartphones and
pro-camera features encouraged some end users
to purchase new smartphones or upgrade their
current smartphones in the quarter.”
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Worldwide Top 5 Smartphone Sales to End Users by... [+]
GARTNER
Total smartphone sales for the quarter globally
were 384.6 million, while in 2019 fourth quarter
sales broke the 400 million unit mark.
Xiaomi was the fastest-growing vendor, up 34%
to 43.4 million smartphones. Huawei, which lost
major international markets during the Trumpera US-China trade war, was down 41.1%.
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“The impact of the ban on use of Google
applications on Huawei’s smartphones was
detrimental to Huawei’s performance in the year
and negatively affected sales,” Gartner says.
For the entire year, Samsung retained its global
lead in smartphone sales, but Apple and Xiaomi
were the only two major smartphone vendors to
grow year-over-year in 2020.
Key to growth in 2021?
5G, according to Gartner, which forecasts a
return to growth in global smartphone sales in
this year.
“In 2021, the availability of lower end 5G
smartphones and innovative features will be
deciding factors for end users to upgrade their
existing smartphones,” say Gupta. “The rising
demand for affordable 5G smartphones outside
China will boost smartphone sales in 2021.”
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John Koetsier
I forecast and analyze trends affecting the
mobile ecosystem. I've been a journ… Read More
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