Kate Middleton, after Prince Harry Confirmed Their FeudNot unexpectedly, the unprecedented success of Apple in the fourth quarter of 2014 also resulted in some bad news for one of the key rivals of the iPhone manufacturer. Newly published data from many market research firms seem to suggest that Apple’s archrival Samsung has benefited the most from iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus popularity. According to recent research from Apple’s Strategy Analytics record 74.5 million iPhone sales connected Samsung’s smartphone sales increased to 80 percent of its 95 million overall cell phone sales consisting of smartphones. According to Strategy Analytics s data Samsung’s December quarter smartphone sales numbers represent a year-over-year decline of 13 percent while sales of Apple’s iPhone increased 46 percent over the same period. Similarly, Apple’s global smartphone market share in the quarter of December rose to 19.6 percent from the 17.6 percent share it had in the quarter of the year-ago while Samsung’s share fell 10 percentage points from its 29.6 percent share in the fourth quarter of 2013. Although Samsung still retained the global smartphone market lead in 2014 with a 24.7 percent share compared to Apple’s 15 percent share the data represents a startling turnaround in Samsung’s fortunes. Motorola Mobility acquired from Google last year claimed No. 3 spot after its year-over-year fourth quarter unit sales increased by 31 percent. Huawei another low-cost Chinese smartphone manufacturer “took the No. 4 spot after growing its quarterly sales by 45 per cent year-over-year. Even Samsung saw a decrease in its year-over-year revenue and market share among the top five vendors listed by Strategy Analytics “including the large Others group.” Because Lenovo-Motorola Huawei and many of the companies in the Others group are low-cost vendors based in China, Chinese smartphone manufacturers tend to be as responsible for Samsung’s declining sales as Apple. Meanwhile, Apple’s recent entry into the smartphone market’s phablet segment has helped both Samsung and low-cost Chinese smartphone makers to steal market share from the iPhone maker. According to a recent press release by market research firm Canalys the success of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus has allowed Apple to take the No. 1 spot on the Chinese smartphone market costs less than many of Samsung’s devices while providing similar technical specifications has taken the No. 2 spot following Apple. Finally, it should be pointed out that even though Samsung consistently sold more smartphone units than Apple, the iPhone maker still led for any company in the most significant metric: income. For example in the first quarter of 2014Canaccord Genuity figures quoted by AppleInsider Samsung sold 85 million units. (Total market revenues for smartphones are more than 100 percent due to operating losses by some companies). This is why Apple’s fourth-quarter sales tie with its long-time chief competitor may be the first indication this Samsung’s already tenuous lead in the global smartphone industry is beginning to crumble. @ArnoldEtan WSCS
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