The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco not only led the company to lose billions of dollars and consumer faith, but it has also resulted in it losing its number one position in the smartphone market.

While Apple sold 78.3 million iPhone units, Samsung sold 800,000 fewer units at 77.5 million thereby making Apple the market leader for the final quarter of 2016. Apple’s strong performance can be attributed to the company launching the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and pushing it aggressively through various promotions.

Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “Samsung lost momentum in the quarter as a result of its Note 7 battery fiasco. Samsung captured 18 percent share for the quarter and 21 percent share for the full year, its lowest level since 2011. Samsung will be banking on the rumored Galaxy S8 model in a few weeks’ time to reignite growth and return to the top spot in quarterly smartphone shipments. On an annualized basis, Samsung maintained first position with 309 million units shipped worldwide in 2016.”

Samsung remained the world’s largest smartphone vendor for the full year in terms of volume, though, as it shipped 309.4 million smartphones compared to Apple’s 215.4 million. However, Samsung’s total yearly shipment declined by over 10 million units leading to its market share reducing to 20.8 percent when compared to 22.2 percent from 2015.

Capitalising on Samsung’s loss were Chinese OEMs Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo which posted some impressive growth numbers. Huawei captured a record 10 percent of the global smartphone market share despite the company struggling in China thanks to its strong performance in Europe. It shipped 138.8 million smartphones in 2016, up from 107.1 million in 2015. Oppo and Vivo also posted record growth numbers thanks to their strong growth in China. The former shipped 84.6 million smartphones thanks to the popularity of its flagship handsets like the R9, while Vivo almost doubled its growth on a yearly basis and shipped 71.9 million units in 2016.

Overall, the global smartphone market grew by 3 percent to a record 1.5 billion units.

Samsung is expected to make a strong comeback in 2017 with its Galaxy S8 flagship, though the new design that Apple is rumored to launch with the iPhone 8 will make for an interesting battle between the two companies for the number one position in the smartphone market.