iPhone 12 sales drive Apple to the top position of smartphone vendors in Q4 2020, with Samsung ranking second: Source Gartner
The iPhone 12 models have enjoyed strong sales and the fourth quarter of the year 2020 lifting the Tech giant, Apple to the top of the global smartphone market as shown by a survey on Monday.
The market tracker Gartner released a report that showed Apple's sales at 79.9 million iPhone models in the first 3 months of the year, a 15% leap from the previous year placing Apple ahead of Samsung in sales in the global smartphone market that shrunk about 5.4%.
Apple captured an undeniable 20.8% of the market to secure the top spot for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2016 according to the report by Gartner.
Samsung suffered an 11.8% dip in sales, dropping their total sales to 62.1 million units within the same period as reflected in the second position ranking and 16.2% of the global market sales.
The overall global smartphone market was negatively affected by global consumer caution. The introduction of the new 5G handsets remedied the situation to some extent said the Gartner analysts.
According to Anshul Gupta, a senior research director at Gartner, the sales of more 5G models and lower to mid-tier smartphones minimized the decline in the fourth quarter of the year 2020. Despite the widespread consumer caution, the 5G capabilities and pro camera features encouraged some users to upgrade their current smartphones or purchase new smartphones in the fourth quarter.
The Chinese companies, Xiaomi and Oppo, held the third and fourth positions with 11.3 and 8.9% of the global market respectively.
Huawei fell to the fifth position with 8.9% due to the sanctions limiting its access to US technologies.
For the duration of 2020, the global smartphone market suffered a monumental 12.5% drop in sales of smartphones worldwide, putting the total figure at 1.3 billion units as shown in the survey. Samsung however remained the top seller for 2020 despite falling behind Apple in the fourth quarter, the Korean manufacturer managed an 18.8% share of the Global market, significantly ahead of Apple's 14.8% share.
Source