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Thanks to 7 Plus, Apple topped Q4 smartphone sales, can you guess with which other iPhone it beat Samsung?

By Daniel Petrov

Updated: Feb 10, 2017, 8:33 AM

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Infographic: New iPhones and Batterygate Help Apple Beat Samsung | Statista

In the October-December period of last year, a perfect storm catapulted Apple to become the world's largest smartphone vendor. Apple beat Samsung by a hair, shipping 78.3 million iPhones in the holiday quarter, against 77.5 million for the Korean conglomerate.

Granted, it took a bungled Note 7 battery pack, and a lot of new customers for Apple who came attracted by the inventive dual camera set of the iPhone 7 Plus, but who's to say that this won't be replicated again n Q4 2017 with the eventual launch of an OLED iPhone 8, too. Given that Apple also scored the highest average selling price of its iPhone roster ever - $695 - it's not hard to deduce why it made nearly $18 billion in profits, the highest quarterly result ever recorded by a public company.

Thanks to 7 Plus, Apple topped Q4 smartphone sales, can you guess with which other iPhone it beat Samsung?

A jaw-dropping achievement as Apple's Q4 smartphone sales volumes may be, given that it mainly sells high-end, expensive handsets, it's not the first time that the team from Cupertino beats the one from Seoul in smartphone sales. Can you guess when was the only other quarter when this happened? Yep, Q4 of 2011, when the iPhone 4s brought along Siri for the ride, while Samsung was in only the second edition of its flagship line with the Galaxy S II. Samsung moved 36 million smartphones that quarter (and a whole lot of feature phones), while Apple went for the holiday kill with 37 million.

Thank you, Siri, can you tell us the Q4 2017 numbers now?

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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena from 2010 to 2025, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.