Gartner: in Q4 2020, Apple sold 80M new iPhones globally, overtaking Samsung to become the largest smartphone vendor, increasing its market share by ~15%
Apple overtook Samsung to become the largest smartphone vendor worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2020, a feat not achieved by Apple since 2016 …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's quarter at the top reverses a 2019 shipment ranking in which Samsung led and Huawei had moved ahead of Apple. It establishes that the Apple-Samsung contest was already more fluid than an annual leaderboard suggested.
Later coverage reinforces the distinction between quarterly and longer-cycle leadership: Apple led 2023 shipments in a shrinking market, then held a narrow 2025 lead over Samsung. Apple's 2023 shipment lead makes this quarter an early marker of a recurring two-vendor race.
First-order effects
- Apple becomes Gartner's largest global smartphone vendor for the quarter after selling 80 million iPhones, while Samsung loses the top quarterly ranking.
- The reported roughly 15% market-share increase gives Apple a materially stronger position in comparisons of the two vendors' Q4 performance.
Second-order effects
- Samsung faces a more immediate need to defend its lead against Apple in subsequent flagship and holiday cycles, rather than competing chiefly with Huawei, which had overtaken Apple in 2019 shipments.
- Market-share analysis shifts toward whether Apple's Q4 strength can translate into annual leadership, a question later answered differently as Apple led the 2025 market by one percentage point.
Third-order effects
- If these alternating leads persist, global smartphone leadership becomes less a durable crown than a cycle-sensitive contest between Apple and Samsung, with quarterly results carrying greater strategic weight.
- The pattern also points to a more concentrated top tier: the related coverage moves from a 2019 three-company ranking to later reports centered on Apple and Samsung.
The trend: Global smartphone leadership is evolving into a closely contested Apple-Samsung duopoly whose quarterly and annual rankings can diverge.