Apple surpassed Samsung in Q4 2014 in terms of global smartphone sales, new research report claims.
According to a recent research conducted by IT research and advisory company Gartner, Apple shipped a total of 74.8 million iPhones in Q4, 2014 as compared to Samsung which sold 73 million smartphones during the same period last year. Following Apple and Samsung in the list stood Lenovo (including Motorola) in the third spot with 24,000 units and Huawei in the fourth spot with 21,000 units.
In 2014, total smartphone sales recorded were 1.2 billion units, up 28.4 percent from 2013 and represented two-thirds of global mobile phone sales.
According to Gartner, Apple’s smartphones sales jumped about 49 per cent in the fourth quarter, while, Samsung, which was a market leader since 2011, recorded a nearly 12 per cent fall. The Cupertino’s success could be attributed to the record sales of its latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones.
“Samsung’s performance in the smartphone market deteriorated further in the fourth quarter of 2014, when it lost nearly 10 percentage points in market share,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.
“Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013. This downward trend shows that Samsung’s share of profitable premium smartphone users has come under significant pressure.”
Commenting on the research report, Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner, said “With Apple dominating the premium phone market and the Chinese vendors increasingly offering quality hardware at lower prices, it is through a solid ecosystem of apps, content and services unique to Samsung devices that Samsung can secure more loyalty and longer-term differentiation at the high end of the market.”
