Samsung Takes the Lead In the Smartphone Market

New submitter landofcleve writes "When the writing is on the wall, you fight harder — or at least that's what we've seen from Apple in recent months. Now we know why: Samsung has reached a market share above Apple's for smartphone sales. 'Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the last quarter, taking 23.8 percent of the market ... Apple’s 17.1 million shipments, comprising 14.6 percent of the market, pushed the Cupertino, California-based company to second place. Nokia maintained its third position.'"

High-end models?

[TwoOranges]

How many of those smartphones are high-end models that are comparable to the iPhone?

How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple didn't release a phone last quarter. Wait 1 quarter.

Welcome to today's oblig. apple/android throwdown

[jeffmeden]

With articles like this, you would think it really mattered who made more of what in a quarter... Never mind that geographies are different, carriers are different, and features are different. Time to buckle down for the hordes of apple and android gang-bangers to fill another thread with vitriol and made up words.

Re:Sue

[ClaraBow]

Seriously, what has happened to all the great discussions which defined Slashdot as a community of thought provoking and insightful people who were tech-savvy and in the know! This 7th grade banter is getting annoying!

Re:High-end models?

[MadKeithV]

How many of those smartphones are high-end models that are comparable to the iPhone?

None.
Or according to Apple's lawyers: every single one.

Re:Sue

[monoqlith]

i'm sorry, when was this?

Re:High-end models?

[phayes]

The most interesting questions is rather: "How many of the shipped pones will actually get sold before 2012?" Samsung has shown it can produce phones now let's see if they can actually sell them.

Shipped vs Sold...

[Anonymous Coward]

Android "ships" phones, Apple "sells" phones -- this misleading comparison of apples and oranges continues. When will Android manufacturers start quoting "actual sales"?

Lets see how Apple recovers in "sales" figures now that their newly released phone is out, the last quarter was expected to dip due to anticipation of many wanting to purchase the new model.

quarterly reporting and reality

[goombah99]

Samsung released their Galaxy II s in the previous quarter. apple did not release the overdue and widely expected 4S till this quarter. Combine that with the fact that the smart phone market is expanding (not zero sum) so that apple does not have to sell less for Samsung to sell more, and it's pretty clear this statistic is just an anomoly due to the way sales get binned by quarter. We won't know much about it till a few more quarters have passed to average it out. My guess is the 4s is the hot cake for Q4.

Re:High-end models?

[goombah99]

oddly I want an iphone none the less. strange is it not that specs are not everything.

Re:High-end models?

[VMaN]

You are why people in marketing have a job. But you probably feel good about it, so win-win?

Re:High-end models?

[heathen_01]

... and still has a crappy 3.5" screen.

iPhone: 640 x 960 Galazy: 480 x 800

Re:Shipped vs Sold...

[dzfoo]

Ship and sold mean the same thing, uh? So, devices sitting in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be sold, count as much as those in consumer's hands?

I'm sure it's comforting to all those app developers to know that they are reaching a mass market of... er... fork-lift operators, stevedores, and store clerks.

Have you ever heard of channel stuffing?

          -dZ.

Re:Units Shipped != Units Sold

[coinreturn]

Judging by majority of polls etc... I'm inclined to theorize that apple's units sold numbers are more inflated then samsungs

No. Apple easily sells every single unit the make (also, they release SALES numbers, not shipped numbers). I suspect there's a reason Samsung doesn't release sales numbers.

if could do it over, would not have bought iphone

[Dan667]

seems like you just get a lot more for your money with Android.

Re:High-end models?

[UnknowingFool]

I don't know if Apple or Jobs ever cared about having the most sales. To the loyal fans, they cared about having the best product. To the cynics, they cared about having the most profit.

Re:Sue

[revscat]

I was there. It did exist. Now, it's Slashdot is primarily based around Apple hate and imbeciles.

There are other places on the internet. No harm, no foul.

Re:High-end models?

[UnknowingFool]

Apple makes more profit in the smartphone market than any other manufacturer. I think the estimates are somewhere between 50% to 66%. By model, Apple has the highest sales. Apple however doesn't sell many models. Apple could release a cheap model to get more sales but I don't think they ever will. Given their history of sticking to the high end and most profitable segments of markets, this is unlikely. Your reaction instead of a discussion about things is to scream "fanboi!"

Re:High-end models?

[UnknowingFool]

If you care to see through your Apple hatred you would realize that I'm trying to have a frank discussion about strategy. The smart phone market like the computer industry is highly competitive. Apple could never compete with Nokia or Samsung by selling the most units but at a lower margin. Just like they could never compete with Dell. Under Jobs it seems that they take a minimalist focus in this regard. Their strategy has always been to focus on a smaller number of models but at the high end of the market for more profit. Thus I don't think they are bothered if they don't have the highest sales. I think they are proud that their strategy has placed them #1 in certain categories. However, all this seems lost on you as all you have are rantings and are adding nothing to the discussion. Would you care to quibble how better vi is compared to emacs?

Re:High-end models?

[s73v3r]

You know, it's assholes like you that give Android, and geeks in general a bad name. Just because you might not like someone's choice of phone/OS, doesn't mean that choice isn't valid. Dismissing every competitor to Android as "marketing" means you fail to realize what makes those ecosystems good, which makes it harder for Android to improve.

Get off your fucking high horse, dipshit.

Re:High-end models?

[s73v3r]

I like how your response to anything Apple is "It's all marketing!" as if they don't have to put out quality products to begin with. It makes it much easier to spot you as an anti-fanboy, and dismiss pretty much anything you have to say.