Apple Inc. Vs Samsung: Tech Giant Becomes Number One Smartphone Vendor
Here’s some good news for Apple Inc. and some bad news for Samsung. Apple’s iPhones helped it climb to its top position for number one smartphone sales, beating out Samsung’s smartphones. Apple basically kicked Samsung out of the number one spot in global smartphone sales due to the success of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Gartner released its annual global sales figures on Thursday, March 5. The company showed that Apple got a boost in sales thanks to its new phablet. Meanwhile, Samsung has been finding itself in a sales slump. Apple sold 75 million smartphones worldwide while Samsung only sold 73 million. That’s still not bad, but it’s not as good as Apple.
The Market Business revealed the dramatic difference in sales between the two tech giants in just the course of a year.
“In the final quarter of 2013, Apple sold 50 million iPhones and Samsung sold 83 million smartphones. In the year that followed, Apple’s marketshare went from 17.8 per cent to 20.4 per cent while Samsung dropped from 29.5 per cent to 19.9 per cent.”
Mobile News seems to tell a different story. Samsung maintained its top spot for sales throughout 2014, reporting global shipments of 307 million smartphones, which was up from 299 million smartphones from the previous year. Samsung’s market share fell from 30.9 percent of sales in 2013 to 24.7 percent in 2014.
Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, explained Samsung’s sudden fall from its top spot.
“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. 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.”
What will Samsung have to do to reclaim its number one spot? Robert Cozza, a research director at Garner, told V3.co.uk that the manufacturer has to adopt a new strategy if it wants to compete with Apple.
“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.”
Since Apple now has the number one spot, Chinese brands are pressuring Samsung to offer “quality hardware at lower prices.”
Apple may not enjoy this moment for long, as Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S6 Edge earlier this week. The smartphone is expected to release to the market in April, which could top the sales of the Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Some critics are still uncertain on whether Samsung will reclaim its number one spot in the second quarter of this year.
[Image: TechStage]
