The four best-selling camera phones in January were Apple iPhones

(Image credit: Apple)

With the iPhone 12 only released towards the end of last year, it seems that there's still plenty of demand for the latest Apple camera phones. A new market report shows that not only has Apple grabbed the top spot for the best-selling camera phone in January – it's also nabbed the next three as well (plus two more further down the list).

The standard iPhone 12 tops the list, followed by the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the iPhone 12 Pro. These three models apparently contributed to 71% of Apple's total sales for the month, with almost one-third of Apple's sales for the iPhone 12 series coming from the US.

• Read more: iPhone 13

According to Counterpoint Research's Market Pulse Report, these three iPhone 12 models were followed closely by the iPhone 11. This isn't particularly surprising, as consumers were likely taking advantage of the small price drops caused by the release of the newer iPhone 12 series. Plus, other than the addition of 5G, there isn't a massive amount of difference between the 11 and the 12 series.

The iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone SE (2020) also appear on the top 10 best-selling camera phones list, but are only 8th and 10th on the list respectively. With reports that the iPhone 12 mini hasn't sold quite as well as Apple had hoped, it will be interesting to see whether we see an iPhone 13 mini model in the next iPhone release this year.

The only non-Apple camera phone products to break into the top 10 were the Redmi 9A, the Redmi 9, the Samsung Galaxy A21S and the Samsung Galaxy A31.

The Counterpoint research posits that part of the reason that Apple has enjoyed such robust sales for the iPhone 12 family during January is due to "pent-up demand for 5G upgrades within the iOS base… along with strong carrier promotions… Besides, Apple launched the new iPhone series later than the usual date, resulting in strong demand for these models spilling over into January".

With strong releases planned from major manufacturing rivals over the next year, it'll be interesting to see whether Apple hangs on to its strong sales throughout 2020.

With over a decade of photographic experience, Louise arms Digital Camera World with a wealth of knowledge on photographic technique and know-how – something at which she is so adept that she's delivered workshops for the likes of ITV and Sue Ryder. Louise also brings years of experience as both a web and print journalist, having served as features editor for Practical Photography magazine and contributing photography tutorials and camera analysis to titles including Digital Camera Magazine and Digital Photographer. Louise currently shoots with the Fujifilm X-T200 and the Nikon D800, capturing self-portraits and still life images, and is DCW's ecommerce editor, meaning that she knows good camera, lens and laptop deals when she sees them.

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