Samsung Ousts Apple for Top Spot as Android Takes Over Smartphone Market
The newest estimate from Strategy Analytics, a 40-year-old consulting firm, finds that Samsung has officially overtaken Apple for the most smartphones shipped last quarter.
The Korean cell phone giant distributed over 27.8 million smartphones, which equates to 23.8 percent of the global smartphone market. In comparison, Apple’s 17.1 million shipments equal 14.6 percent.
Nearly tied with Apple was Nokia, who has 14.4 percent of the smartphone market.
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Samsung, who’s been making a fortune producing phones and tablets equipped with Google’s Android processing system, made over half its total third quarter profits on their smartphone designs.
$1.4 billion of the Seoul-based company’s $2.4 billion could have been spurred by the all-new Galaxy series of phones they released earlier this year.
However, Samsung’s recent success in the smartphone race is marred by the report of much lower profits in its electronics division.
Earnings of $3.1 billion last quarter are 23 percent lower than last year’s estimate of $4 billion.
The loss of profits is mainly attributed to less demand for flat panels, computer chips, and semiconductor chips. Incidentally, Samsung also produces a number of key components for Apple products.
Samsung, a multinational conglomerate of business, has its hands in everything from life insurance to shipbuilding to hotel management. Its recent dominance in the smartphone market is expected to continue in the next three quarters, especially because of the increase in sales usually stimulated by the holidays.
Samsung accounts for a fifth of Korea’s gross domestic product, so the success of the country is largely dependent on the 73-year-old company.
Robert Yi, vice president and head of investor relations, said in a statement, “We cannot rule out the possibility of demand growth slowing compared to previous years,” as far as their other electronics components are concerned.
This is just one more reason smartphone vending could be a more permanent future for the Korean conglomerate.
Kim Hyun-joong, a manager of a fund that owns Samsung shares said, “In the handset division, Samsung has no real rival models except for the iPhone 4S. Apple and Samsung will continue to dominate the market in the fourth quarter,” according to Reuters.
The breakdown of global smartphone sales by Strategy Analytics excludes the iPhone 4S because of its late release date.
Sprint’s gain of 1.3 million customers set sales record for the company, and was largely attributed to the decision by Apple to launch the 4S on their network.
According to Strategy Analytics, smartphones are 44 percent of the total global mobile phone market, shipping over 117 million units.
