Yesterday Apple reported all-time record revenue or $111.4 billion, up 21% year-over-year. IDC's latest smartphone report notes that Apple delivered a phenomenal performance in 4Q20, returning to the number 1 position with 90.1 million devices shipped.

Overall, the worldwide smartphone market continued to improve in the holiday quarter of 2020 (4Q20) returning to familiar ground with 4.3% year-over-year growth. Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 385.9 million devices during the quarter. While the full year 2020 declined 5.9% compared to 2019, the progress toward market recovery has been impressive and IDC believes the momentum heading into 2021 will remain strong.

Statement by Nabila Popal, research director with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers: "There are a lot of elements at play that are fueling the smartphone market recovery – pent-up demand, continued supply push on 5G, aggressive promotions, and the popularity of low to mid-priced phones. Vendors also seem to be better prepared for the second lockdown, ensuring they have the right channel set up ready to fulfill orders and reach the end consumer. Lockdowns also have people spending less on areas like leisure, travel, and dining out – and smartphones are benefitting from this. In addition to all these factors, the fast recovery and resilience of the smartphone supply chain also has to be given some credit."

In terms of vendors, there was a clear shift among the Top 5. 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.

Q4 Worldwide Smartphone Shipments

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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%.

Huawei fell to the number 5 spot with shipments of 32.3 million and 8.4% market share. The company continues to suffer under the weight of U.S. sanctions and saw a dramatic year-over-year decline of 42.4%.

2020 Worldwide Smartphone Shipments

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