A pair of reports agree -- more or less -- on the current state of the battle
Click to enlarge. Source: IHS iSupply.
Two reports published Thursday -- one by IHS iSuppli, the other by Strategy Analytics -- describe the global race for smartphone supremacy as high-stakes see-saw.
Basically what happened is that Apple (AAPL) took the lead from Nokia (NOK) in June, lost it to Samsung in September and won it back in December.
"Apple's introduction of the 4S in the fourth quarter unleashed tremendous pent-up demand for the iPhone as consumers awaited the arrival of the latest model," said IHS senior analyst Wayne Lam. "This caused the company's smartphone shipments to surge, allowing it to retake market leadership by a slight margin. However, 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."
Although the two firms are tracking the same markets and using the same metric (shipments, rather than sales to end users), their numbers differ by as much as 2.5 million units. IHS has Samsung shipping 95 million smartphones worldwide in 2011 (see spreadsheet above). According to Strategy Analytics, the Korean company shipped 97.4 million.
But they both agree that Apple, which reports its sales with considerably more transparency than Samsung, sold 93 million iPhones in 2011.
Below: The Strategy Analytics spreadsheets.
Even with 40% fewer unit sales, the iPhone generated 3 times more profit
Source: Strategy Analytics
Apple's (AAPL) reign as the world's No. 1 maker of smartphones, it turns out, was like the life of a grasshopper: It overtook Nokia (NOK) in June and was overtaken by Samsung in September.
Strategy Analytics reported Friday that Samsung either shipped or sold (accounts differ) 27.8 million smartphones last quarter, easily outpacing the 17.07 million iPhones that MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 28, 2011 8:08 AM ET
The iPhone last quarter took in 5.6% of unit sales and 66.3% of the profit
Click to enlarge. Source: Asymco
Some readers complained when we ran a similar headline almost a year ago, accompanied by the bottom chart at right.
At the time, Apple (AAPL) had a 3% share of the global mobile phone market but was taking 39% of the profit -- a situation that didn't seem to bode well for MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 30, 2011 7:26 AM ET
The next contender: Samsung, whose Android phones are gaining fast
Data: Strategy Analytics. Chart: PED
The companies that track mobile phone sales are just now catching up to the news that came out of Apple's (AAPL) last week. According to the company's Q3 earnings report, Apple sold nearly 20.24 million iPhones last quarter, up 142% from the same quarter last year.
On Thursday, IDC reported that that makes Apple the world's No. MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 29, 2011 8:06 AM ET
Reports that Apple's iPad lost a big chunk of its market turn out to be premature
Galaxy Tab. Photo: androidcentral.com
[CORRECTION: Samsung's Lee Young-hee was misquoted in the transcript cited by the Wall Street Journal. A tape recording of her remarks show that she was describing the Galaxy Tab's sell out as "quite smooth" not "quite small."]
Judging from Monday morning's tech headlines, Apple's (AAPL) iPad must have got clobbered last quarter.
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