Apple continues to prosper amid the gloom of a worldwide pandemic and supply-chain difficulties, with Tim Cook today receiving another piece of good news.
According to a new report from the analyst firm Canalys, Apple shipped more smartphones than any other vendor in the fourth quarter of 2021. That represents an improvement of one place from Q3, when Apple came second and Samsung was top.
Xiaomi maintained third place.
In explaining Apple’s ascendancy, Canalys cites the great success of and unexpectedly high demand for the four models in the iPhone 13 family, particularly in China.
“Apple is back at the top of the smartphone market after three quarters, driven by a stellar performance from the iPhone 13,” said analyst Sanyam Chaurasia. “Apple saw unprecedented iPhone performance in Mainland China, with aggressive pricing for its flagship devices keeping the value proposition strong.”
This is despite the fact that the global chip shortage caused problems for Apple as well as for all the other vendors, with widespread delays and lack of stock seen in the crucial pre-Christmas buying period. It seems that, while Apple was hit by the shortage, other, and particularly smaller, vendors may have been hit even worse.
Canalys gives its figures in terms of market share (based on shipments) only. We do not get to know exactly how many phones were sold.
Smartphone shipments, Q4 2021 (market share in brackets):
- Apple (22%)
- Samsung (20%)
- Xiaomi (12%)
- Oppo (9%)
- Vivo (8%)
Other manufacturers had a combined share of 29%.
This article originally appeared on Macworld Sweden. Translation (using DeepL) and additional reporting by David Price.
