Apple sold an estimated 71.7 million iPhones in this period, which secured it a 19.8% market share worldwide.
In contrast, Samsung sold 70.3 million units – a market share of 19.4% – while Huawei achieved 60.5 million unit sales, and a market share of 16.7%.
Samsung was still comfortably the leading smartphone seller of 2018, however, selling 293.7 million phones during the year – compared to the 212.1 million and 206 million by Apple and Huawei respectively.
Despite Huawei's 34.5% increase in sales from 2017, Canalys predicts a poor 2019 for the Chinese company due to global concerns regarding cybersecurity.
"Political tensions, security concerns, and disputes over intellectual property theft threaten to disrupt its remarkable momentum," said Canalys.
The 2018 sales figures for the biggest smartphone companies in the world are shown below.
