Samsung Passes Nokia As Biggest Handset Manufacturer

rtfa-troll writes "Tomi Ahonen reports that Samsung has become the largest manufacturer of smartphones (overtaking Apple) and of mobile phones (overtaking Nokia). During the first quarter of 2012 Samsung sold 93.5 million phones, with 44.5 million (48%) of those being smartphones. Apple would still lead on 'smart mobile devices' with 52 million sales including iPads, but not iPods. The last time the lead in mobile phone sales changed was in 14 years ago, in 1998, when Nokia overtook Ericsson. Ericsson never recovered and began leaving the mobile phone market three years later, creating Sony Ericsson, later Sony Mobile. It looks like the mobile phone market is going to be brutal, with Apple and Samsung crushing everybody else except possibly HTC, which is still rising, and Motorola (which has Google to look after it)."

Comments

Re:Meego

[AliasMarlowe]

If only I could buy a new phone with Meego on it...

In some countries, you can, such as Australia, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, etc. But not in the US, UK, Japan, or Germany (the Germans apparently are buying them from Switzerland). The Nokia N9 runs on Meego "Harmattan", which is actually intermediate between Maemo and Meego. It's deliberately withheld from the larger markets, because it causes some embarrassment to the Lumia series of WinPhones.

Re:Turns out they had a great plan!

[Hope Thelps]

The only problem is that Samsung makes about a nickel on each phone it sells.

Okay, doing a quick search on "samsung ,mobile phone profits". I see things like:

"reported its highest quarterly profits since 2008, with net profit almost doubling to 5.05 trillion won ($4.5 billion) for the three months to March 31." (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120427/samsung-profits-jump-mobile-phone-sales-outstrip-apple-and-nokia)

and

"Samsung’s quarterly handset division profits nearly tripled to 4.27 trillion won ($3.8 billion U.S.), accounting for 73 per cent of total profit" (http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1169494--galaxy-phone-powers-samsung-to-record-profit)

Now, maybe those reports are wrong. And very possibly Apple makes much much more on their phones (I haven't checke but I believe it) BUT I really doubt Samsung are crying over results like that. This looks like a very very succesful business for them.

Instead of linking to a random blog post...

[Emetophobe]

There are better sources at BBC News or Bloomberg.