Xiaomi soared passed Apple to become third largest smartphone vendor in Q3: Gartner

Xiaomi edged past Apple during the third quarter of 2020 to become the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor, reports Engadget citing research company Gartner.

Per the analytics firm, global smartphone sales contracted 5.7 percent year-over-year to 366 million units in Q3 2020. This is actually good news, given that the last two quarters had seen a decline of 20 percent.

Samsung was the top vendor with sales of 80.9 million units and a market share of 22 percent. It witnessed modest growth of 2.2 percent and Gartner has attributed that to “its strong positioning amongst Android users.’

 
With 51.8 million units shipped, Huawei was the second-largest seller. The company lost a substantial percentage of sales, presumably because of the restrictions imposed by the US. 

Xiaomi benefited greatly from Huawei’s losses

Xiaomi saw the most growth during the quarter and managed to sell 44.4 million units. Apple, on the other hand, shipped 40.5 million iPhones in Q3 2020 and witnessed a decline of 0.6 percent. Gartner believes sales took a hit because of the delay in the launch of the iPhone 12 series. 

Xiaomi’s lead over Apple will probably be short-lived, as early reports suggest that the iPhone 12 has launched to strong demand and an upgrade supercycle is probably underway.

And lastly, with sales of 29.9 million units, Chinese company OPPO also secured a place in the top five.

Overall, the market seems to be recovering, thanks to pent-up demand from earlier quarters and the improvements on the supply side. That said, a new coronavirus wave could be upon us, and we will have to wait and see if the recovery continues into Q4.