The international data corporation, IDC revealed that the Chinese tech giant Xiaomi has surpassed the US-based company, Apple in terms of smartphone sales worldwide, taking third place.
The South Korean company, Samsung is back on top as the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturer only one quarter after losing its first place to another Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Huawei.
Huawei held the first spot three months ago when a surge in smartphone sales occurred in China while much of the rest of the world was economically hit badly due to the pandemic.
According to Counterpoint, Huawei’s shipments fell 7 percent quarter-on-quarter and 24 percent year-on-year while at the same time Samsung’s shipments increased by 47 percent over the last quarter. Samsung shipped approximately 80.4 million devices over this period.
Huawei’s shipments fall somewhere around 51.9 million devices which take over 14.7% of the global market. Xiaomi has scored a market share of 13.1% while Apple’s numbers are capped at 11.8%. Xiaomi has shipped about 46.5 million shipments, while Apple has shipped 41.6 million units worldwide.
In a way, Xiaomi regained its position on number three for the first time in several years. It goes without saying that Xiaomi overtook Apple in sales for the first time with year-on-year growth capped at 46 percent. Apple’s shipments fell a staggering 7 percent year-on-year in the July-September quarter. This fall in sales could be explained not only through the pandemic, but also stems from Apple’s decision to delay the launch of new iPhones to October and November.
OPPO, Vivo, and Realme take up the fifth, sixth, and seventh positions respectively. The number of sales of these three brands is very close, and if the third-quarter shipments of these three brands are combined, they would be closer to the number one Samsung, than to Huawei which takes up the second place in sales.
