Apple reported its earnings for Q1 2020, and it was a bumper quarter for the company. It sold more smartphones than any other brand worldwide, beating Huawei and Samsung.

According to analytics firm Strategy Analytics, Apple managed to sell 70.7 million iPhones during the holiday quarter. In comparison, Samsung sold 68.8 million Galaxy smartphones and Huawei sold 56 million smartphones. This rise in Apple’s sales figure was a result of the iPhone 11 series, especially the iPhone 11 which was priced $49 lower than its predecessor.

If you look at the complete year’s picture, Apple slipped from the second to the third position, trailing Samsung and Huawei. Apple sold 197.5 million iPhones last year, coming in third in the global smartphone sales chart. Samsung took the first position and had a comfortable lead over Apple, with smartphone sales reaching 295.1 million units. Huawei took the second position, selling 240.5 million smartphone units.

The overall shipments of smartphones remained flat from 2018 to 2019, so it was mostly a question of who ate whose market share. Apple’s market share dropped slightly from 14.4% in 2018 to 14% in 2019, while Huawei’s market share zoomed from 15% in 2018 to 17% in 2019. Samsung’s market share for 2019 increased to 20.9%.

On the other hand, a separate report from market intelligence firm Canalys claims that Apple was way ahead of Samsung in terms of holiday quarter sales. In fact, this report assumes that the iPhone maker had higher sales than the South Korean smartphone giant in 2018’s holiday quarter.

Our Take

Apple managed to outdo Huawei and Samsung in the holiday quarter due to the iPhone release cycle. Plus, Huawei faced extreme issues due to China-US trade tensions and subsequent sanctions on Huawei from using technologies developed by US-based companies.

The iPhone 11 series was very well-received by consumers, thanks to improved cameras and battery life. The Cupertino-based company even corrected the pricing of the iPhone 11. It set the price more attractively compared to the iPhone XR, which was released the previous year. No wonder, the iPhone 11 was the best-selling smartphone every week of the October to December quarter.