Apple and Verizon have announced a new partnership enabling enterprise customers to exhchange their smartphones and upgrade to any model in the iPhone 12 lineup for zero upfront cost, with zero to low cost per month.

The enterprise iPhone upgrade programme called 5G Fleet Swap allows businesses to upgrade all their smartphones from any carrier to the new iPhone 12.

The Samsung Note 20 Ultra was the bestselling 5G smartphone globally in September 2020 with seven of the top 10 models coming from Chinese OEMs. CounterPoint analyst Ankit Malhotra says the launch of iPhone 12 series will make the list look quite different after a couple of months.

Smartphone vendors shipped 31.9 million smartphones in the United States in Q2 2020, a 5 percent year-on-year decline, but an 11 percent quarter-on-quarter increase, Canalys said.

Apple and Samsung accounted for seven out of every 10 devices sold, and Apple established a new domestic record in Q2, shipping 15.0 million iPhones. It shipped 15 percent more of its flagship iPhone 11 than last year’s best-seller, the iPhone XR.

With the launch of the iPhone SE, Apple’s quarterly market share ballooned to 47 percent. Samsung matched 2019 shipment levels, but its fortunes reversed. It shipped 59 percent fewer Galaxy S20 5G series handsets than S10 series models in Q2 2019.

“Paired with Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband going indoors and 5G Fleet Swap, an all-new device offer for enterprise, it’s now easier than ever for businesses to build transformational mobile apps that take advantage of the powerful iPhone 12 lineup and 5G,” Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Markets, Apps and Services, said.

iPhone 12 5G smartphones come with edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR displays, new camera systems, and Apple-designed A14 Bionic chip. Apple iPhone 12 models also integrate the most 5G bands on any smartphone for the broadest 5G coverage worldwide.

Verizon said on Thursday that it was working with General Motors and Honeywell International to deploy 5G networks at a GM factory in Detroit and Honeywell’s headquarters in North Carolina.

Verizon Business CEO Tami Erwin said Verizon Business is hoping to sell those services to businesses for new applications, such as factory floors outfitted with sensor-equipped machinery that generates data to better track production processes.

“What this allows us to do is create an infrastructure that becomes a playground for chief information officers as they build their digital roadmap,” Tami Erwin, chief executive officer of Verizon Business, told Reuters in an interview.