Apple overtakes Xiaomi and halves the gap with Samsung - smartphone market statistics for Q3 2021

IDC published the results of smartphone market research in the third quarter of 2021. Samsung continues to be the leader, but in comparison with the third quarter of 2020 Apple has halved the gap.

What's known

From July to September, Samsung shipped 69 million smartphones, down 14.2% from the same period last year. The share dropped from 22.7% to 20.8%. On average, the market declined by 6.7%.

Second place went back to Apple, which Apple reports Q4 2021 earnings of $20.6 billion on revenues of $83.4 billion. The Cupertino giant grew shipments by 20.8% and took 15.2% of the market. In volume terms, Apple shipped 50.4 million smartphones. Now it is only 18.6 million behind Samsung, although in the base period the difference was much more noticeable - 38.7 million units.

Apple's breakthrough sent Xiaomi to the third position. The Beijing-based manufacturer delivered 44.3 million smartphones against 46.5 million units a year earlier. Its share was almost unchanged at 13.4%.

Vivo and OPPO continue to go paired. The former shipped 33.3 million smartphones and controls 10.1% of the market. The latter, having shipped 0.1 million fewer devices, has a 10% share. Shipments grew by 5.8% and 8.6%, respectively, compared to the third quarter of last year.

Finally, all other manufacturers have shipped a total of 101.1 million devices. This is 18.7% (23.2 million units) less than in the base period. The market, as we wrote above, sagged by 6.7% or 23.7 million units in volume terms.