Xiaomi began the year 2020 by growing about 145% YoY in Europe. Cut back to 2021, a report by Counterpoint Research says that the company gained the most as the European market plummeted overall last year. realme was the fastest-growing brand in Europe with a ten-fold increase in sales.

According to the report, the European market plummeted overall by 14% in 2020 as compared to the year before. The market was worst affected by the COVID-19 as the disease first hit in April and came back in September to haunt the region. Among giants like Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi benefited the most in Europe.

Although Samsung was the top vendor in Europe in Q3 as per Canalys, the report says that Xiaomi managed to outsmart Samsung by growing about 90% annually. Speaking of which, Samsung reportedly didn’t manage to grab the void left by Huawei to a greater extent.

The company’s mid-rangers like Galaxy A51, and A71, and rivals’ Redmi Note 9 Pro outsold its flagships in early 2020. And amongst an army of Chinese companies rising in the region, Apple’s arrival in Q3 with iPhone 12 meant its game got spoilt more. With Galaxy S21, prospects are good for the Korean giant in 2021 but it has a lot of work to do.

Huawei’s market share dropped to 5% by December and the tussle with the US really affected them. As for the other Chinese brands, thanks to carrier partnerships OPPO grew as big as 68% in Q4. realme, on the other hand, saw a whopping 420% YoY growth in Q4 and remained the fastest-growing brand.

Last but not the least, despite getting a sluggish start, Apple had its budget iPhone SE pickup the sales in 2020. Later in the year, it launched the iPhone 12 devices and got a huge reception. In fact, the report says that the 2020 flagships helped Apple gain a whopping 30% of share in Q4.

Moving into 2021, Research Analyst, Ankit Malhotra says that the market is craving for 5G devices. As a result, sales of Galaxy S21, iPhone 12 along with those from Chinese vendors should help drive the market in Q1 2021.

RELATED:

• Samsung leads the Global TV market for the 15th consecutive year
• Apple was Japan’s largest smartphone brand in 2020 with a 47.3% market share
• Huawei turns to other businesses to make up for its loss of the smartphone market

The post Smartphone market plummets by 14% in Europe in 2020, Xiaomi gains the most and realme grows 420% YoY in Q4 appeared first on Gizmochina.

The mobile division of Samsung didn’t witness a very impressive final quarter last year, which was within expectations. The company faced “intensified competition in the year-end season,” as per its recent earnings report.

During Q4 2020, the company saw a decline of 11 percent year on year when compared to its performance in 2019. The “intense” competition here likely points to Apple and its iPhone 12 series, which stole the show during the fourth quarter of 2020. While the iPhone 12 lineup faced a delay in launch and even faced a staggered release for a couple of its models, the company managed to stretch its early buyer’s phase till the month of December, as per a PhoneArena report.

Due to the pent up market demand for new an iPhone upgrade, Apple saw a significant rise in iPhone shipments during this period, with its iPhone sales also surging by 17 percent year on year. This resulted in the company drawing in a revenue of 111 billion US Dollars out of which near 29 billion US Dollars was the operating profit. The lack of any new Galaxy handsets to compete with and a rise in marketing costs during the holiday season led the Samsung mobile division to only see a modest performance during this time.

While the company’s display division managed to see great sales due to it supplying the iPhone OLED screens, its memory and chip sales saw a decline as well, with the company only bringing in about 6 billion US Dollars in net profit. Despite the lackluster performance in the final quarter of 2020, Samsung is optimistic about 2021 and it’s first few months, unlike Apple.

The former is expecting better performance thanks to its strong 5G enabled Galaxy handsets portfolio along with its cheap foldable lineup as well. As per official Samsung notes, the company will “strengthen leadership in our flagship lineup by expanding S21 sales and popularizing the foldable category… [and] increase smartphone sales by fully addressing replacement demand for 5G with mass-market 5G models.”

RELATED:

• Apple becomes the world’s leading smartphone brand, Huawei rapidly loses ground
• Samsung to start supplying foldable display panels to other companies
• Samsung Galaxy M02 to launch on February 2 with sub-Rs 7,000 (~$96) pricing

The post Samsung sales decline due to Apple, but is hopeful with its cheap foldable and 5G Galaxy devices appeared first on Gizmochina.

Apple has become the world’s leading smartphone brand after it achieved record shipments of its iPhones. The company saw a notable jump in shipments in the fourth and final quarter of last year, while Huawei sees a major decline.

According to a Counterpoint Research report, the Cupertino based giant witnessed a sizeable jump of 22 percent in terms of shipments during this quarter. The company’s great sales are most likely carried by its newly launched iPhone 12 series, which is its first 5G enabled lineup. Furthermore, the boost in sales was also helped by pent up market demand, especially for people looking to upgrade from their older Apple iPhone models.

During Q4 2020, Apple iPhone shipments crossed 90 million units, which is a record compared to any other quarter. This also gave the company a global market share of 23.4 percent. Canalys analyst Nicole Peng added that “In China, Apple seized the perfect opportunity to capture Huawei’s market share in the high end, when the latter has essentially not enough supply even though demand for the brand is still there.” As per Apple CEO Tim Cook in an interview with Reuters, “We had two of the top three selling smartphones in urban China.”

The fourth quarter is usually the strongest for the company owing to its launch of new iPhones during the second half of a year. Apple overtook Samsung, despite the South Korean brand also seeing a 6.2 percent rise year on year, reaching 73.9 million units and achieving a market share of 19.1 percent. Meanwhile, Huawei saw a drastic impact on its shipments due to US sanctions, which had its shipments plummet by a record 42.4 percent to 32.3 million units.

RELATED:

• Apple Watch saves the life of a British cyclist caught in a flooded river
• Apple sees its best quarter performance in India, doubles its iPhone sales in Q4 2020
• Apple to launch 2nd Gen AirPods Pro in first half of 2021: Report

The post Apple becomes the world’s leading smartphone brand, Huawei rapidly loses ground appeared first on Gizmochina.

Prices of DRAM, and NAND flash memory chips plunged in October as per a Korean report. The reason for the downfall is reportedly the US’ sanction on Huawei that recently came into effect.

According to a research firm DRAMeXchange(via TheElec) prices of PC DDR4 8GB DRAM, 128GB NAND flash memory card. And USB MLC products fell to $2.85, and $4.2 in October respectively. In fact, the drop from August and September is about 8.9% for the DRAM. And 3.4% for the memory chips above. The report also says that the drop is higher than the 5% drop in July for DRAM.  This drop was after a sudden soar in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 situation.

EDITOR’S PICK: SK Hynix launches World’s First DDR5 DRAM, offers 1.8 times faster transfer rates

That said the report says the average selling price of PC DRAM will continue to fall in Q4 2020. It could reach as high as a 10% drop as the oversupply situation is imminent. The reason these prices dint drop that much in Q3 was the heavy stockpiling of Huawei after US ban. Further, South Korean giant Samsung also said that it expects Q4 to be dull for server chips demand as demand lessens, and competition rises.

Before you conclude a catastrophe, the report breathes confidence that the memory market will likely recover next year. Although there isn’t a proper timeline, somewhere before the first half of 2021 should do it. Similarly, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International(SEMI) predicts that semiconductor fab spending will rise by 18% in 2021.

The impending YoY(year-on-year) demand for Memory chips has forced companies like Samsung to reportedly invest in fab facilities before the situation gets out of hand. This could probably make up for the worst situation it faced this year due to the pandemic.

UP NEXT: OEMs ramp up IC parts orders in a bid to fill the vacuum created by Huawei’s slump

The post Prices of DRAM, and NAND Flash memory chips plunge in October following US Sanctions on Huawei appeared first on Gizmochina.