(RTTNews) – According to a recent report published by Burga, American smartphone giants, Apple Inc. (AAPL) bettered its game year-over-year to become the third biggest smartphone company in Russia. Apple has taken significant advantage of the ban imposed on Huawei which was third in third quarter of 2020.
Samsung is the most-sold smartphone across the globe during the July to September period with 20% of the market share, selling as many as 69.3 million smartphones. In Russia as well, the South-Korean phone maker has prevailed for the second consecutive year with a 34% market share since toppling the crown from Huawei back in 2019.
Meanwhile, Cupertino-based Apple is the second-largest phone-maker with a 14% market share globally but in Russia, the company has conceded the runner-up podium to Chinese company Xiaomi. Xiaomi has been preferred by 26% of the Russians while 15% have opted for iPhones.
Apple has enjoyed a major step-up year-over-year from having a 9% share after the fall from the grace of Huawei. Huawei has been banned from the US and is banned from using any US-based service which translates to the fact that any Google feature will be unavailable in the phones.
In a wider scenario, most of the major vendors of smartphone components have also denied collaborating with Huawei since its ban in May 2019. Chipmaker Qualcomm has also cut ties with the company resulting in it depending on in-house Kirin chipsets completely. These events have turned the customers away from their devices which has resulted in the increase of other companies’ numbers.
In the case of Apple, its exorbitant pricing outside the US has long plagued the sales of the company. Despite launching arguably the best-in-class handsets, Apple has been undercut by Samsung in most of the markets due to Apple’s premium pricing and Samsung’s presence in most of the price segments.
Another fact that has played against Apple in the Russian market is the forever-brewing tensions between the two countries.
However, Apple’s appeal is strong in Russia as well as Google’s search keyword of iPhone 13 obtained a peak score of 100 in Moscow. In Moskovsky and Sakhalin Oblast, the score came in at 83, to confirm Apple’s presence in the market
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