Apple, which has fewer handset models than its competitors, had consistently ranked first and second in previous quarters.
Since Samsung's Galaxy A12 was first released in the fourth quarter of 2020, quarterly shipments from 2021 have consistently exceeded 10 million units, according to Omdia, despite occasional production shortages due to the Covid-19 pandemic in India and Vietnam.
On an annual basis, the Galaxy A12 recorded a total of 51.8 million units in 2021. This is Samsung's first model to have exceeded 50 million in a year with a single model and ranked first in terms of shipments among more than 1,000 smartphone models shipped worldwide.
As competition with Chinese companies intensifies, Samsung has been strengthening its mid- and low-end lineup, integrating the low-end J series handsets with the A series since 2019. At the same time, Samsung has been steadily expanding the adoption of multi-cameras in its A series models and adding more...