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Samsung Takes the Lead In the Smartphone Market
New submitter landofcleve writes "When the writing is on the wall, you fight harder — or at least that's what we've seen from Apple in recent months. Now we know why: Samsung has reached a market share above Apple's for smartphone sales. 'Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the last quarter, taking 23.8 percent of the market ... Apple’s 17.1 million shipments, comprising 14.6 percent of the market, pushed the Cupertino, California-based company to second place. Nokia maintained its third position.'"
Well, apple does have a patent out on being the leading smart phone company- so by being #1, Samsung is in clear violation of that patent.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How many of those smartphones are high-end models that are comparable to the iPhone?
Apple didn't release a phone last quarter. Wait 1 quarter.
I love this, make a better product and get a bigger marketshare, I believe that is what has happened here. :)
Good for Samsung
This is the sig that says NI (again)
With articles like this, you would think it really mattered who made more of what in a quarter... Never mind that geographies are different, carriers are different, and features are different. Time to buckle down for the hordes of apple and android gang-bangers to fill another thread with vitriol and made up words.
Seriously, what has happened to all the great discussions which defined Slashdot as a community of thought provoking and insightful people who were tech-savvy and in the know! This 7th grade banter is getting annoying!
Price them so close to cost that you make basically no profit, but sell a lot...
And neither one represents number of active users. I can imagine that Apple has a much better sell-through rate of stock, and Samsung supplies a lot of models to a lot of retailers & service providers.
i'm sorry, when was this?
(Posting AC from work)
I guess it's impossible to just post a story about how well Samsung is doing without throwing in an Apple reference (and implication that their fight against Samsung is based on Sammy's success rather than the more likely possibility that Apple simply feels Sammy is ripping off their IP, regardless of how many phones Sammy is selling). Gotta generate those page-views and geek drama, right?
sigh...
With articles like this, you would think it really mattered who made more of what in a quarter... Never mind that geographies are different, carriers are different, and features are different. Time to buckle down for the hordes of apple and android gang-bangers to fill another thread with vitriol and made up words.
Well, according to Apple and Samsung, these guys are stealing so many of each other's ideas they are practically selling the same phones, if you believe the testimony.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Yes, because fighting the market leader by lawsuit has been an effective strategy for Apple in the past. They never would have gained a majority share of desktop PCs without that lawsuit.
Oh, no, wait, that's not what happened at all. The courts said that was all obvious stuff, kicked them out, and the bad press hurt more than the lawsuit gained them. Hopefully history will repeat itself with the recent patent suits.
It's a deserved market position.
Samsung does nicely both in the budget segment (Samsung Gio, for example) as well as in the high range Android market, the Galaxy S2, Vibrant, etc.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
It is quite obvious that apple's sales will be low in the quarter before they release the new iPhone, in this case the 4S. To see if Samsung has really taken the lead, we'd have to look at annual figures.
For the record, I'm a Samsung fan.
This is based on analysts guesses. Samsung didn't release any numbers.
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
And regardless, this is only about smart phones. Nokia maintains the first position in all mobile phones, especially when including Asia.
Maybe they have to sell them at too low a price in order to try to keep volume up?
...to be the #1 phone vendor.
Android "ships" phones, Apple "sells" phones -- this misleading comparison of apples and oranges continues. When will Android manufacturers start quoting "actual sales"?
Lets see how Apple recovers in "sales" figures now that their newly released phone is out, the last quarter was expected to dip due to anticipation of many wanting to purchase the new model.
iPhone sales dropped off last quarter (from 20.34 million in Q3 2011 to 17.07 in Q4) presumably as people held back while waiting for the mythical iPhone 5.
In 2008, 2009 and 2010, Q4 was when Apple introduced the latest model, and always represented the highest sales of the fiscal year. This year, Apple was "late," and customers stayed home. Sales will almost certainly recover this quarter with the 4S.
Right, because Apple really cares about market share. After all, they were only doing so well because they had the lions share of the PC market before that.
Oh, wait...
Seriously?
Market share doesn't matter. Profit does. Apple is perfectly happy to own the most lucrative top percentage even if it's only a fraction of the overall market.
pardon this frudilation, but i think it a incorrect alataic memfarma to suggest that there are any words that aren't made up or otherwise rumpusted.
it's that or someone's been secretly mining them with sharing such impetitude.
Kudos to Nokia for hanging around. I haven't wanted a Nokia phone since 2003.
So Samsung sells more phones than Apple in the quarter before Apple releases its newest model. Big deal! Of course they're selling less when everyone is waiting for the IPhone 5!
Shipped != Sold
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Samsung released their Galaxy II s in the previous quarter. apple did not release the overdue and widely expected 4S till this quarter. Combine that with the fact that the smart phone market is expanding (not zero sum) so that apple does not have to sell less for Samsung to sell more, and it's pretty clear this statistic is just an anomoly due to the way sales get binned by quarter. We won't know much about it till a few more quarters have passed to average it out. My guess is the 4s is the hot cake for Q4.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Seriously, there's 24 smartphones listed on their website. Anyways, it seems to me that if you sell more than two or three phones at a time your company will appeal to a broader user base... reminds me of that saying, "if you throw enough shit at a wall, some of it is bound to stick". The Bloomberg link does talk about the fact that Samsung has been smart to carry such a diverse lineup of phones, I agree the broad selection is attractive, and that's likely the key factor at play. How would the numbers play out if we compared on a phone by phone basis... Galaxy Nexus to the iPhone 4, or Galaxy II thingy to the iPhone 4S
Topic says all.
One can oversell his competitor selling junk. What about similar products? "Oh hey, both are phones" Technically, yes, but how much of these 23% are smartphones, Android or Windows Mobile based, whose could be compared to the iPhones?
That's a comparison I'm yet to see.
So I'll end this discussion right now:
Only Hitler would own a smartphone.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
So, are we allowed to call Samsung buyers "sheeple" now, or is that somehow exclusively reserved for Apple?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Based on my experience with Samsung phones, I would be very surprised if they can hold that market share. In my family of 4 we had 4 Samsungs (various models - 3 smartphones). 3 of the 4 crapped out within the first 6 months of use (only the dumbphone continued to work). One of them had to be replaced 3 times. Samsung obviously does not care about quality control, so I'll never buy another Samsung product again... ever.
I know several friends that have had similar experiences and have come to similar conclusions. Samsung won't be able to hold on to their marketshare lead when they continuously deliver a poor user experience.
They have been doing it quite successfully in Europe this year, so I don't know why you're citing a 17 year old case.
Hmm. I think shall have to impovisate Bitword, the new Libertarianistic alternativialistic language. But we'll have to freedomate the creation of words to make sure that it doesn't get devalumated by word inflation.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I think there is room for both humor and deep conversation. I certainly spend more time on slashdot for both the above than I probably should.
I'm amazed anyone can let themselves get wound up over a light-hearted comment about a publicly traded corporation. Especially one meant in jest and with no malicious intent.
I drive a toyota- I love my toyota- but if someone makes a joke about toyota, I'll probably laugh and move on- mostly because the gas pedal sticks and I have no other choice.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
That's because they make, or at least used to make, the best phones from a hardware - form - price perspective. I think the same can be said of Samsung when you pitch their phones against iPhones. Now all they have to do is to improve Android or make WP7 their main platform, leaving Android for power users.
*hands monoglith a pair of nostalgia glasses*
That, and you get smarter with time so I'm sure it felt more intelligent relative to yourself back then. If you actually went back and re-read the discussions, the conclusion may be different...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Why the jab against the fanboys? Fanboys will also look at such information with a more critical eye and help dispel the sensationalism in these articles.
So just to be clear, it's a quarter in which one of the two companies didn't release a phone and before what is their best quarter. It's using estimated numbers for one of them (since actual numbers weren't given). It's comparing "shipped" to "sold" units.
Was there any purpose to this at all except to get cheap hits with the flamebait?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I'm guessing you are not familiar with the actual history (The facts) since the case would still be in the courts if Microsoft hadn't settled. The truth according to me is that Jobs was a visionary with decent business acumen while Gates was an average coder who became a very shrewd businessman and marketer. Had Jobs had the forethought (and ability to allow someone else to make decisions besides himself) to get some shrewd businessmen/lawyers/marketers Apple would most likely had a much larger footprint by 1990. Instead he trusted Microsoft to honor their contract and got burned. Which I believe ultimately lead to Jobs acting more and more like Gates.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
There is one more thing that makes the Samsung market share numbers uninteresting, and we will have to see how this pans out over time. So far Apple has been in limited distribution, only ATT in the US. Recently they have gone to Verizon and Sprint which gives them mass market distribution for the first time. Samsung, OTOH, appears to be the primary smartphone supplier to Cricket. This gives them a huge market, but mostly for handset around $150 and below. One would assume at these prices they have to sell in huge volume to generate a profit. Note that the volume of sales are comparable to Apple's. Therefore either the smart phone segment is growing so fast that marketshare is not so much of an issue as volume and profit, or marketshare is important but only in terms of overwhelming percentages.
I look at the mature PC market, the commodity market started when Compaq reversed engineered the PC and took off the late 80's when everyone could get commodity parts and put a computer together in their living room. 20 years later how many dedicated mass market vendors are left? There is not enough money in it for IBM. It is basically HP, Dell and Asus.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Which is it, sales or shipped? I know we've seen this game time and time again. We also see iPhone sales take a nose dive before they release a new model.
Interesting from a tech perspective, but I'm more interested in longer term than a quarter where Apple released a new model.
Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in Q3, while Apple shipped and sold 17.1 million iPhones. How many of those 27.8 million smartphones did Samsung actually sell?
I'm guessing not close to the number shipped, because their Q3 profits are down 23%.
We are talking about smartphones here which implies a certain minimum (touch screen, installable apps, etc). Smartphones are the high-end of the general phone market and a suppose you could say that there is a high-end of the high-end, but that is always a moving target which each new release leapfrogging to become the new high-end. Some of Samsung's smartphones are comparable with iPhone 3GS (which Apple still sells by the way), some are comparable with the iPhone 4 and it's upcoming releases will be comparable with the 4S.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
"Shipped" doesn't equal "sales." For all we know, there could be a warehouse someplace with a few million units gathering dust.
seems like you just get a lot more for your money with Android.
Apple is doomed.
They just released their third quarter numbers yeaterday: almost 100,000 xoom tablets and almost 5 million android smart phones. With numbers like those, it's no wonder Apple had such a lousy quarter. Get used to it Cupertino!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
and help dispel the sensationalism in these articles.
And replace it with new, more-persistant sensationalism!
With articles like this, you would think it really mattered who made more of what in a quarter... Never mind that geographies are different, carriers are different, and features are different. Time to buckle down for the hordes of apple and android gang-bangers to fill another thread with vitriol and made up words.
Or the fact that one is estimates of shipments to outlets and another is actual sales reported.
I was there. It did exist. Now, it's Slashdot is primarily based around Apple hate and imbeciles.
There are other places on the internet. No harm, no foul.
Yes, a lot more crappiness for your money. Well worth it.
*ducks*
(I kid, I kid, I have seen some awesome Android handsets and some awful ones - it seems the experience can be all over the map depending on which one you get, whereas the Apple experience is pretty much a straight line since there is little variation in handsets).
leaving Android for power users.
Where does this meme come from?
If you're having trouble using an Android phone, I'd suggest you ask for help from one of the millions of normal phone owners who're very comfortable using them.
Apart from Ballmer and his marketing team, the only people who seem to find them complicated are the ones posting here on Slashdot...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Fan = short for 'fanatic'. Fanaticism = irrational.
A fanatic will not dispel sensationalism. www.dicitonary.com or www.google.com with 'define: fanatic". Words have meaning; use them wisely.
Note that Samsung is only one Android vendor, and is outperforming iPhone. There are several other Android vendors with large sales as well: HTC, ZTE, LG, Motorola, etc.
Name the date. I'll dig up the articles and compare.
Didn't Apple aimed to less of 5% of market share when they released the original iPhone? Didn't Apple stayed only one quarter on the top spot as FTA says? This is not a trend which one loses and the other wins. Both Apple and Samsung are trouncing the competition. Apple in profit and Samsung in sales. Samsung gets money anyway every time Apple sells an iPhone, they are or should be happy how things are turning now. Bad for RIM, Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Between "number of devices _sold_" and "number of devices _shipped_". I read somewhere a while ago about how Samsung was flooding the market with its devices but most of their devices weren't turning into actual sales. But even so.. Nevertheless, Just the fact that they were able to move almost 28 million handsets into the market is itself a grand statement to their capacity.
Geekism is your _only_ God!
From where I sit it's a lot of fanboi Apple apologists. Guess everything's relative and we all suffer from confirmation bias.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
so let me get this right. you argue that jobs was amazing up until he got burned by gates, and therefore became the douche he became? I think you need to go back in time, jobs pretty much always a douche according to those around him even in the early days
I kid, I kid
No you don't; you're a known Google hater and Apple fanboy. Kidding is alright between parties of mutual respect, but you've shown that you think Google is an evil, closed company because they haven't released source code to an unreleased project yet, while Apple is awesome because they give you updates for a couple of years.
So fuck off, troll.
I love my Toyota too, and having a clutch, never really concerned myself about the supposed gas pedal issue :)
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Please show me where I said he was amazing? I said he was a visionary. Visionaries almost by definition are douche bags. In fact I was saying that had he not been such a douche and let somebody help him make some of the business decisions Apple might have grown more than it did in the eighties.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
This report is talking about units shipped, when the Apple figure is units sold to customers.
Why do research firms keep doing this?
You read too much into my facetious comment. Enough to bring out the vulgar language and the cowardice of not logging in to an account that is pretty anonymous as it is.
Either way, the adults are talking. Come back when you're ready to take part.
I would be interested to see the evidence that paints me as a "known Google hater", other than this one flippant comment that you replied to. You and I both know that no such evidence exists, unless you are counting any non-pro-Google post (ie, anything that doesn't specifically praise Google) as being "Google hating".
You fanboys are amusing, though.
They never update software. they want you to buy a new model. Fuck 'em. The best is HTC. Though I have never bought it 'cause I am unemployed. Cant' afford it.
Sure, technically they sold more. But have a look at the wide variety of phones Samsung sells http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/all-products and then you'll easily see that lots of the so called smartphones are rather cheap upgrades of standard phones and do not even remotely offer the functionality an iPhone has.
From where I sit it's a lot of fanboi Apple apologists. Guess everything's relative and we all suffer from confirmation bias.
--Jeremy
It's the one fighting the other, when neither are adding value or information to the system.