The smartphone world is bouncing back from the early days of the
pandemic, and there—s been a changing of the guard as a result. Gartner
estimates that Xiaomi overtook Apple in phone sales during the third
quarter of 2020, climbing from 32.9 million handsets a year earlier (8.5
percent of the market) to 44.4 million (12.1 percent) this summer. Apple
gained share, too, but its 40.6 million iPhone sales were a slight dip
from 2019.
It was more of a familiar story at the top. Samsung held on to the lead
with 80.8 million sales (22 percent). Huawei took a blow and dropped from
65.8 million phones sold to just 51.8 million, but that—s not
surprising as US trade bans gut the company—s mobile business. …
