Apple beat out Samsung to become the world's leading seller of smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a new data report by research firm Gartner.

However, this victory for Apple happened amid a general decline of the smartphone market.

Overall smartphone sales declined 12.5 percent in 2020 and by 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter.

The lower rate of decline in the quarter compared to the rest of the year was attributed to "sales of more 5G smartphones and lower-to-mid-tier smartphones," according to Gartner's Anshul Gupta.

Samsung saw an overall decline in smartphone sales throughout 2020 of 14.6 percent, though the company still remained the top smartphone seller across the year, regardless of Apple's Q4 victory.

Its sales fell 24.1 percent. Gupta said that 2021's smartphone sales will be driven by adoption of 5G phones outside of China.