iPhone Pro Max: Now the Most Popular 5G Smartphone

February 17, 2021 Topic: iPhone 5G Region: Americas Blog Brand: Techland Tags: SmartphoneTechnologyIPhoneCommunicationData

iPhone Pro Max: Now the Most Popular 5G Smartphone

Ever since the iPhones were introduced late last year, they have topped most surveys of both the most popular and highest-selling smartphones, both in the United States and in the world.

Throughout 2020, surveys were often released of the most popular and best 5G smartphones, but most of those came with the caveat that the first 5G iPhones hadn’t been released yet. Those four phones finally did arrive in October and November of last year, and new survey data indicates that they instantly became the most popular 5G smartphones on the market. 

PCMag, citing data from Speedtest by Ookla and M Science, reported Wednesday that the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the most popular smartphone in forty-nine of the fifty states. Only Vermont, as well as Washington, DC, listed the iPhone 12 Pro as the most popular instead.

Ookla ranks the phones by its Speedtest, while M Science tracks direct sales, but both determined both that the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the most popular 2020 iPhone, and that the iPhone 12 mini is the least popular, which has been the case ever since the launch. 

In data the week of Jan. 23, M Science ranked the iPhone 12 Pro Max the highest-selling 5G smartphone, followed by the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro, with a pair of Samsung models, the Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra, rounding out the top five. The number were collected before the release the following week of the new Samsung Galaxy S21. 

Of the thirty-three phones listed, the highest-ranking phone not from Apple or Samsung was the LG V60 ThinQ 5G, which ranked fourteenth.

You may not have been aware that Nokia, the stalwart of the cell phone market two decades ago, still offers a smartphone in the United States. But the Nokia 8 V 5G UW was listed in last place of M Science’s 5G smartphone rankings, in thirty-third place out of thirty-three. That Nokia phone was released last November, as Nokia’s first multi-band 5G phone release. Nokia’s smartphone business was actually briefly sold to Microsoft in 2014, but bought back two years later by a Finnish company, doing business as Nokia Mobile and run by former Nokia executives. 

Second from the bottom was the Motorola Edge+, followed by the OnePlus Nord N10, the TCL 10 5G UW, and the LG Wing 5G. 

Ever since the iPhones were introduced late last year, they have topped most surveys of both the most popular and highest-selling smartphones, both in the United States and in the world. The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, according to Counterpoint Research, were the two most popular 5G smartphones in the world last October, even though they were only available for part of that month. 

That popularity helped Apple achieve record revenue of over $100 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, including $65.6 billion in sales from iPhones. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for the National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters