“Apple Inc. captured the top spot in China’s smartphone market, vaulting it into a tie for global leadership for the first time since 2011 as booming sales of iPhones with larger screens helped it gain ground on Samsung Electronics Co.,” Bloomberg reports.
“Both companies shipped 74.5 million smartphones globally in the fourth quarter to grab 19.6 percent of the market each, Strategy Analytics Inc. said in an e-mailed statement Thursday,” Bloomberg reports. “Lenovo Group Ltd. was third with a market share of 6.5 percent after its acquisition of Motorola Mobility.”
“Apple’s move into larger screens hit Samsung in an area it pioneered as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were popular in markets where consumers want a bigger device to perform the role of a phone and tablet computer. In China, the world’s largest market, Apple surged into first place, overtaking local vendor Xiaomi Corp., which fell three spots to sixth place globally,” Bloomberg reports. “Shipments of all mobile phones, including those with limited Internet access, rose 7 percent last year to a record 1.8 billion units. Samsung shipped 405 million units for a 22.4 percent share, followed by Microsoft Corp.-Nokia Oyj with 11 percent. Apple was third with 10.6 percent.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Apple doesn’t play the market share game. With their inimitable iPhone, they offer only premium, market-defining smartphones, not junk, all the way down the line, blurring the line between smartphones and feature phones like Samsung. This nonexistent market share race between Apple iPhone and “Android” (whatever that is) is nothing more than an analyst/media concoction.
In the race that matters, the race in which Apple does run, profit share, Apple utterly dominates. Second place is so distant, it’s like they’re not even on the same planet, much less on the same track.
And, by the way, estimates of Samsung’s unreported unit totals are based on:
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