Apple to overtake Samsung as world’s largest smartphone maker in Q4: TrendForce

Apple is expected to overtake Samsung as the world’s largest smartphone vendor during the fourth quarter, according to analyst firm TrendForce.

During the third quarter, Samsung took the top spot with 21.2% market share, followed by Apple’s 15.9%. Oppo, Xiaomi, Vivo ranked third from fifth.

The South Korean tech giant had produced 69 million units during the quarter, up 17.9% from the previous quarter.

Samsung’s Vietnam factory which suffered from halts due to the COVID-19 pandemic normalized during the quarter, TrendForce noted.

But during the fourth quarter, Apple is expected to take back its top spot with 23.2% market share, followed by Samsung’s 19.4%, the analyst firm said.

Cupertino had manufactured 51.5 million units of iPhones during the third quarter, up 22.6% from the second quarter, TrendForce said.

This trend is expected to continue up to the fourth quarter, which will allow Apple to overtake Samsung, the firm said.

Apple is also expected to ship over 25 million units of its third-generation iPhone SE during the first quarter next year, as the model will be popular in the mid- to low-end 5G smartphone market, TrendForce said.

For the entire year of 2021, the analyst firm expects 1.335 billion smartphones to be manufactured.

It is 10 million units less than its initial forecast, which TrendFoce noted was due to the prolonged chip shortage.