Smartphones sales worldwide declined 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020 which marks an improvement in the market compared to the sales slump in the full year, Gartner said on Monday, 22 February. Overall, global sales of smartphones declined 12.5 percent in full year 2020. The launch of the 5G iPhone 12 series helped Apple record a double-digit growth in the fourth quarter of 2020. Apple surpassed Samsung to retake the No. 1 global smartphone vendor spot, said the report. The last time Apple was the top smartphone vendor was in the fourth quarter for 2016. "The sales of more 5G smartphones and lower-to-mid-tier smartphones minimised the market decline in the fourth quarter of 2020," Anshul Gupta, Senior Research Director at Gartner, said in a statement.