With the fall launch of its iPhones with 5G, Apple once again rose to the world's number one seller of smartphones in the last quarter of 2020, according to a study published on Monday.
For the first time since late 2016, Apple has beaten Samsung in quarterly cellphone sales, even though overall sales have decelerated significantly due to the pandemic.
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Global sales declined 5.4% in the 4th quarter and 12.5% for the year, mainly due to reductions in consumer spending.
But, according to Gartner's study, "
the launch of the iPhone 5G 12-series helped Apple achieve double-digit growth in Q4 2020.
"
The US electronics and tech giant sold 80 million smartphones in the last quarter, up from 70 million a year earlier, according to Gartner estimates.
Its global market share increased from 17.1% to 20.8%.
Samsung in second place
Tim Cook's group is followed by the South Korean Samsung with 62 million devices sold and the three Chinese manufacturers Xiaomi (43.4 million), OPPO (34.3 million) and Huawei (also 34.3 million).
On annual sales, Samsung remains the world leader, even though sales fell 14.6% to 253 million devices.
Apple ranks second in the world (200 million) ahead of Huawei, whose sales, down 24.1%, suffered from US sanctions, underlines Gartner.
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“
The impact of the ban on the use of Google applications on Huawei smartphones has been detrimental to Huawei's performance and has negatively impacted its sales,
” the study said.
