Washington, United States:
Strong sales of iPhone 12 models lifted Apple to the best of the worldwide smartphone market place in the fourth quarter, a survey showed Monday.
The report by market place tracker Gartner showed Apple sold some 79.9 million iPhones in the final 3 months of the year — a 15 % surge from a year earlier — to leapfrog Samsung in sales in a worldwide smartphone market place which shrank by some 5.4 %.
The California giant captured 20.8 % of the market place to take the best spot for the initially time considering the fact that the fourth quarter of 2016, according to Gartner.
Samsung saw an 11.8 % dip in sales to 62.1 million units in the period, providing the South Korean firm 16.2 % of the worldwide market place.
The all round market place was hurt by worldwide customer caution, with the declines restricted by the introduction of new 5G handsets, Gartner analysts stated.
“The sales of more 5G smartphones and lower-to-mid-tier smartphones minimized the market decline in the fourth quarter of 2020,” stated Anshul Gupta, senior study director at Gartner.
“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.”
China-based Xiaomi and Oppo held the third and fourth areas with 11.3 and 8.9 %, respectively.
Huawei, the Chinese firm hammered by sanctions limiting its access to US technologies, fell to fifth location with 8.9 %, according to the survey.
For the complete year, the market place suffered a hefty 12.5 % drop as sales dipped to 1.3 billion units, the survey showed. Samsung remained the best seller for the year with an 18.8 % share, ahead of Apple’s 14.8 %.
()