Following on the heels of a record-breaking quarter for Apple, Strategy Analytics has crunched the numbers and crowned Apple the king of the smartphone vendors for Q4 2014—or rather, one of the kings. It seems the Cupertino company managed to tie rival Samsung for the title.
Both companies shipped 74.5 million handsets during the quarter, though Samsung still outsold Apple in terms of the annual total by a hefty margin. Those quarterly sales gave both companies an equal marketshare of 19.6%.
Strategy Analytics notes that this is the first time since Q4 2011 that Apple has topped the charts. Samsung’s marketshare dropped 8% year-over-year, leading the analytics firm to suggest that the Korean company may need to buy out rivals like BlackBerry to fend off competition from Xiaomi and Apple. Samsung recently denied that it had any intention of doing so.
The next two names on the list for Q4, Motorola-owned Lenovo and Huawei, didn’t even come close to Apple and Samsung, with each capturing just over 6% of the market at around 24 million handsets sold.
Forty-eight percent of the market was claimed the remaining companies under the broad heading of “Other.”
Update: IDC’s numbers, arriving just a day later, are near-identical, though IDC gives a slight edge to Samsung, with its data showing that Samsung sold 600,000 more phones, putting its market share 0.16% higher than Apple’s. Given that estimating sales data is never an exact science, we think this one can be safely called a draw.
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:)
Samsung profit down by 64%. How’s that working for ya samdung?
If you consider Samsungs tremendous mistakes plus the major issues with Android malware and security, they’re beating expectations. There is a beauty of finding Samsung models in the discounted close out bin.
The difference between Apple shipping 74.5 million phone versus Samsung shipping 74.5 million phones? There’s probably 20 million of those Samsung phones sitting in the backrooms of stores and in warehouses, whereas Apple has sold all of those 74.5 million phones.
I thought Appke reports units actually sold while Samsung reports units shipped. That’s not an Apples to Apples comparison.
Samsung reports shipments of mobile phones – they do not break out smartphone figures. That’s left to the analysts.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/01/28/apple-ios-8-1-3-bugs/
I’m still dumbfounded howb9/5 is ignoring these issues?
Ignoring what issues? When has any software ever been released bug free?
I’m dumbfounded how anyone would think that was even possible. That article you linked to is just stupid. Of course support forums are flooded with users with issues, that’s what they’re there for.
apple is doomed man
;)
I’m with ya!
Where are the Shamesung trolls?
No one to laugh at any more. :(
Samsung can’t pay them trolls anymore… profits are down!