iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Todd Haselton | CNBC
Apple sold more smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2020 than any other company, according to market research firm Gartner.
Apple sold nearly 80 million units in the quarter, outpacing all other smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung. It is the first time that Apple has been at the top since 2016, according to the report released Monday.
Apple’s strong holiday quarter and Gartner’s new results continue to suggest that Apple’s iPhone 12 family of devices, with 5G capability and a new external design, is a success in the market. The results also suggest that Apple resisted the coronavirus pandemic better than its smartphone competitors.
Last month, a competing estimate said that Apple sold 90.1 million phones sold in the same quarter, a figure that market researcher IDC said was the best quarter in smartphone history, judged by shipments.
Apple does not report unit sales for its devices. In the fourth quarter of the 2020 calendar, Apple reported $ 65.6 billion in iPhone sales, up 17% year on year. Apple’s businesses are seasonal and the quarter ending in December is the company’s largest in terms of sales. Apple’s latest iPhones weren’t even on sale all quarter.
The smartphone market fell 5.4% in 2020 amid the global coronavirus pandemic, according to the report, while Apple sales grew 3.3%. Samsung still sold most devices over the course of a year.
The biggest drop in the table comes from Huawei, which shrank 24.1% in 2020, although it was still the third largest smartphone maker in volume. Huawei is fighting U.S. sanctions, which have significantly damaged its handset business. Samsung does not face the same challenge, but still saw sales fall 14.6% in 2020, according to Gartner.