Analysts: Apple led the smartphone market around the 2019 holiday season

Apple was the market leader in smartphones in the holiday quarter, according to three analyst firms. Over the year as a whole, Apple lost its second spot in the global smartphone market to Huawei and is now third.

According to Canalys Apple delivered 78.4 million smartphones, about ten percent more than Samsung. Counterpoint Research is coming to about the same conclusion, but does not give exact figures. Strategy Analytics also released numbers and those show a much smaller difference between Apple and Samsung.

The three analyst firms place Apple in first place in the last quarter of 2019, thanks to the release of the iPhone 11 series. The iPhone 11 in particular, with its lower suggested retail price, has boosted sales, the analysts estimate. Apple traditionally has a big peak in the holiday quarter and then deliveries slump. Competitors such as Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi have a much smaller difference between the various quarters.

Over the year as a whole, Apple lost its second place to competitor Huawei. According to Canalys, Samsung delivered two percent more smartphones in 2019 than in 2018, bringing it to almost 300 million units. This means that the South Korean company remains the market leader. Huawei came to 240 million, the manufacturer claims. That would mean second place, because Apple shipped about 200 million units, according to Canalys.

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