Apple retakes crown as top smartphone vendor

Bumper iPhone sales and Samsung's costly Galaxy Note 7 recall ensured Apple overtook Samsung in the fourth quarter as the world's top smartphone vendor by shipments for the first time in five years.

Apple captured an 17.8% share of the global market during the fourth quarter, shipping 78.3 million smartphones worldwide — up 5% year-on-year.

This was despite a 12% year-on-year slowdown in Greater China — one of Apple's largest and most important markets — amid greater competition from homegrown vendors. It also represented the first quarterly growth in iPhone sales in a year.

By contrast, Samsung's total shipments fell 5% year-on-year to 77.5 million, and its market share fell to just below Apple's at 17.7%.

For the full year, Samsung maintained its market leadership with a 20.8% share to Apple's 14.5%, but Samsung's share was the lowest it has been since 2011.

Chinese vendors rounded out the top five during the fourth quarter. Third-placed Huawei recorded a record global smartphone market share of 10% with total unit shipments of 44.9 million.

But fourth-ranked OPPO was the star performer during the quarter with a 99% year-on-year shipments growth to 29.5 million units. The company's total market share nearly doubled to 7%. Vivo was in fifth place with 25.6 million shipments and a market share of 5.8%.

Image courtesy of David Woo under CC

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