Apple and Samsung In Two-Horse Smartphone Race
Saturday, January 28th, 2012Global smartphone shipments climbed 54 percent to a record 155 million units in the final three months of 2011, Strategy Analytics said Friday. What’s more, Apple reclaimed the lead from Samsung as the world’s No. 1 smartphone vendor by shipping 37 million iPhones in the quarter.
Still, Samsung Electronics nearly kept pace with Apple by shipping 36.5 million smartphones during the same period, and on an annual basis led the 2011 field with 97.4 million unit shipments and a 20 percent global market share, said Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston.
“With global smartphone shipments nearing half a billion units in 2011, Samsung is now well positioned alongside Apple in a two-horse race at the forefront of one of the world’s largest and most valuable consumer electronics markets,” Mawston said.
Apple shipped 93 million iPhones during 2011, and other industry analysts believe the coming iPhone 5 will help Apple maintain its explosive unit growth rates this year.
“Apple and Samsung continue to run neck and neck in global smartphone shipments, setting up a tight battle for leadership that will continue throughout 2012,” said IHS iSuppli Senior Analyst Wayne Lam.
Nokia Loses Handset Share
In the global handset market overall, Samsung grew market share by more than one percentage point year-over-year to 21.3 percent, Strategy Analytics said. By contrast, Nokia’s longtime leadership declined from 30.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 25.5 percent in the final three months of last year.
“Volumes were buoyed by the sales of Nokia’s low-end dual-SIM models in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, but were a little soft overall, as initial shipments of Lumia phones could not offset declining Symbian sales,” Mawston said.
Though Nokia said fourth-quarter shipments of its new Lumia smartphones, based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, exceeded 1 million units, that milestone was dwarfed by the…
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