The company sold no less than 90.1 million units

Jan 28, 2021 18:02 GMT  ·  By

Apple itself has bragged about the success of the iPhone 12, and research conducted by IDC indicates the Cupertino-based tech giant has every reason to be happy about how its phones are selling these days.

And it’s all because in the fourth quarter of 2020, Apple became the number one phone maker in the world with device sales reaching no less than 90.1 million units.

Samsung, on the other hand, sold 73.9 million units the last quarter, while third-placed Xiaomi was far behind with just 43.3 million units.

Apple’s market share therefore reached 23.4 percent, while Samsung was the runner-up with 19.1 percent.

IDC says Apple’s smartphone lineup had a “phenomenal performance” last quarter, mostly thanks to the new iPhone 12.

Phone sales on the rise

“Apple delivered a phenomenal performance in 4Q20, returning to the number 1 position with 90.1 million devices shipped, driven by the success of the iPhone 12 series. This represents the highest shipment volume from a vendor in a single quarter and resulted in 23.4% market share and 22.2% year-over-year growth. Samsung moved to number 2 with 73.9 million device shipments and 19.1% market share. With the continued success of the A series and growth in nearly every region, Samsung saw year-over-year growth of 6.2%,” iDC says.

Huawei, on the other hand, keeps struggling with the sanctions in the United States, so the Chinese company fell to fifth place with phone sales of just 32.3 million units and an 8.4 percent market share.

This is a year over year decline of no less than 42.4 percent.

Overall, the phone market improved substantially in the last quarter and posted a year over year increase of 4.3 percent in terms of phone sales, despite the full-year drop of 5.9 percent versus 2019.