Apple the world’s largest smartphone maker; overtakes slavish copier Samsung with 37 million iPhones sold

“Apple in its fall quarterly results retook the crown as the world’s largest smartphone maker. Its 37.04 million iPhones shipped were enough to pass Samsung’s 35 million and ran significantly above most estimates,” Electronista reports.

“The winter may favor Apple. While Samsung may unveil the Galaxy S III at Mobile World Congress in late February, it typically doesn’t ship until months later, leaving any early adopters waiting. Apple was still expanding the iPhone 4S’ reach in January and, in the past couple of years, has usually avoided the post-holiday slump that affects most others,” Electronista reports. “Nokia has yet to report its own results but is expected to place a distant third in the smartphone arena.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple sold, not just “shipped,” 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter. The numbers attributed to Samsung are third-party estimates of “shipped” units.

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MacDailyNews presents live notes from Apple’s Q112 Conference Call – January 24, 2012
Apple stuns Street with massive $46.33 billion record revenue; all-time record Mac, iPhone, iPad sales – January 24, 2012

28 Comments

  1. Apple said there were 6 million iPhones in the channel. I take that to mean they actually SHIPPED 37 6 million, a total of 42 million, compared to Samsung’s 35 million. Let’s compare apples to apples.

    1. To get the actual sell-thru, you have to account for the DIFFERENCE in the channel level. What was it last year, and what is it this year. The channel number for this year of 6M is NOT additional to the 37M. 37M is the shipped figure. Use the difference in channel level from last year to this, to adjust the 37M to get the actual sell-thru.

      1. I should have said you take the channel number from last quarter and subtract it from this quarter to get the adjustment to shipments to get the sell-thru.

        I looked, it was 5.75M last quarter, and a little under 6M this quarter, so let’s say, the actual sell thru was about 250k less. So, the sell-thru total was roughly 36.75M.

  2. And lets talk about what’s really key. Profit per unit. On average, I’ll bet Apple made (at least) 4x the profit per iPhone compared to any other smartphone from any competitor.

    1. Yep…profit margins are off the charts. Think of the effort Samdung has to put out in order to make a decent return on a very bloated overall Sales figure. Copying carries a big karmic price tag.

  3. And note that the Samsung 35 million figure is very shaky (“It anticipated having shipped 35 million smartphones”) and that Samsung, unlike Apple refuses to provide official sales (or even shipping) figures for their mobile devices. I wonder if that “anticipated 35 MM” figure wasn’t conjured out of thin air in an failed attempt to best the anticipated 30 MM iphone sales?

  4. Remember at Samsung, Android is actually “high end”. They also call cheap Bada based phones “smart”… and they don’t release any actual numbers.

    I think the most telling stat is the Verizon sales numbers. No company has done more to promote Android and “4G” etc. etc. And iPhone is outselling every other smartphone they carry combined (Samsung, Android, BB, Moto, HTC) by a comfortable margin. And VZ doesn’t even have the “free” (with contract) 3GS.

    But honestly, looking at what phones have been in use at my fav sbux in the last couple of months, I’m not surprised.

    If only the 4S wasn’t such a disappointment. /evillaugh

  5. My ribs hurt from laughter.
    Hey samdung in you face.

    Hey I bet Apple actually made money on those 37.04 million a lot of money.

    Time to crank up the buy one get two free specials so we can show some numbers that look like we are making money and not just cheap slavishly copied mass produced battery eating virus ridden coffee coasters.

    Typos, bad grammar inserted randomly to add flavor and spice when news is so nice.

  6. Samsunged: Copied slavishly, without regard to justly protected intellectual property

    Origin: Samsung; verb, Samsung-ed, Samsu-y-ing
    1. to make a copy of in a particulary slavish manner;
    2. to follow Apple devices as a pattern or model; imitate
    3. to copy and mis-represent said copy as equal to Apple devices

    Origin:
    2011, contemporary ad-speak (< Anglo-Korean) originally a consumer electroncis device and components manufacturer

    Related forms:
    Verb (used with object), Samsung-ed, Samsu-ing.
    Adjective: Samsunged

    Synonyms:
    duplicate, cheat, infringe, duplicate, imitate.

    Antonyms:
    originate, innovate.

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