Apple has overtaken Samsung as the top smartphone manufacturer worldwide for the first time in two years.
According to research from Gartner, smartphone sales of the two companies were the closest they had ever been during Q4 2016, with Apple edging out Samsung by just 256,000 units.
Overall smartphone sales were up 7% in the quarter compared to 2015 with a total of 432 million units sold. Apple’s market share grew by a modest 0.2% with 77 million units sold, and Samsung experienced a 2.9% drop in market share during the period with 76.8 million units.
Huawei remains steady in third position, selling 40.8 million units and holding a 8% share of the market. Assisted by the launch of the Mate 9 soon after Samsung’s decision to discontinue the Galaxy Note 7, Huawei narrowed the gap between the two companies from 50 million units in Q4 2015 to 36 million units in Q4 2016.
In fourth position with 26.7 million units, Oppo almost doubled its market share in the quarter, up from 3.2% in Q4 2015 to 6.2% in Q4 2016. BBK Communication Equipment, which manufactures OnePlus and Vivo branded smartphones popular in China and India, sold 24.3 million units to double its market share to 5.6%, while other manufacturers made up the remaining 47.6% share of the market.
Samsung remained on top for 2016 overall, making up 20.5% of the 1.5 billion total smartphone sales for the year.
