Samsung Doubles Apple's Share of Smartphone Market as Customers Await iPhone 7

I'm glad Samsung is having success - it will only push Apple to come out with better products. Competition is good for consumers.

iPhone price is an issue, it's too expensive. Customers are paying for perfection when they buy Apple. Also not giving users a flagship 4" model is another issue. Then there's the imperfect design of the 6/6s including the protruding camera and antenna lines. These are issues that crept into the design after the very clean 4/4s and 5/5s. Perfection is Apple's point of difference. When it's not perfect, then customers go elsewhere.

Love it, hate it, or neutral about it, Samsung has done a lot more to help their phones than Apple has over the past 3-4 years. Apple got too content. Sure iOS still has some major advantages over Android in my opinion, but in the hardware area I think Samsung is doing a much better job developing and putting out new products.

Where are Samsung official sales numbers?

They say that they don't report details, for the same reason Apple says they do not report Apple Watch numbers: they claim it would help their competition.

Apple does not break down iPhone model sales for the same reason.

Samsung reports shipments, Apple reports sales. No telling where all those "shipments" are sitting right now.

You're confused. Not your fault. Fan sites used to print confusing info like that a few years back.

Samsung doesn't report numbers at all, of course, so that part of your comment doesn't apply. However, they do count a device as a sale for revenue purposes when the shipment arrives at a retailer.

Apple does publicly report sales numbers, but the majority of those sales are also to retailers... not to end users like you seem to think. Ironically with respect to your comment, Apple counts a device as a sale the moment it is being shipped to a retailer. Which helps Apple give high numbers for opening weekend sales. Many of those are still on ships or planes or trucks.

And quite often, at the end of a quarter, millions of those retailer-sold iPhones are still sitting in retailer storage, waiting to be sold to an end user. That's why Apple sales swing so much. Retailers often purchase too many (perhaps pushed a bit by Apple when good numbers are needed), and that extra stock shows up as fewer sales the next quarter.

Nothing unusual about any of this, of course. The only point is, shipped = sold when it comes to sales reports from anyone, including Apple.

The latest data ('http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41636516') from market research firm IDC reveals that Samsung shipped nearly twice as many smartphones as Apple in the fiscal third quarter. Android-based Galaxy smartphone shipments totaled an estimated 77 million, compared to 40.4 million iPhones ('https://www.macrumors.com/2016/07/26/apple-q3-2016-earnings/'), during the three-month period that ended in late June. For Apple, the fiscal third quarter is seasonally its lowest of the year.



Samsung was the most popular smartphone vendor in the quarter with a leading 22.4 percent market share, nearly double Apple's 11.8 percent market share. Samsung experienced 5.5 percent year-over-year growth on the strength of the Galaxy S7 ('https://www.macrumors.com/2016/07/28/samsung-reports-highest-profit-in-two-years/') launch in March, whereas Apple declined 15 percent compared to the year-ago quarter ('https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/23/idc-apple-samsung-market-share-q215/') as customers await the iPhone 7 series in September.

One bright spot for Apple was the lower-priced iPhone SE, although the iPhone's average selling price dropped to $595 compared to $662 last year:Apple also ceded market share to Chinese rival Huawei, which ranked third among smartphone vendors with an estimated 32.1 million shipments and 9.4 percent market share. Huawei manufactures Google's popular Nexus 6P and introduced new dual-camera P9 and P9 Plus smartphones ('https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/06/huawei-dual-camera-smartphone/') in April, but its presence in the United States and other regions is still limited compared to China.



Chinese rivals OPPO and Vivo rounded out the top five smartphone vendors with quarterly sales of 22.6 million and 16.4 million units respectively. OPPO in particular saw explosive 136.6 percent year-over-year growth over the three months, increasing its market share to 6.6 percent compared to 2.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. Vivo had 9.1 percent market share, an 80.2 percent year-over-year change.

Worldwide smartphone shipments totaled an estimated 343.3 million units in the quarter, an increase of only 0.3 percent from the year-ago quarter, when vendors shipped an estimated 342.4 million units. The relatively flat growth is the result of market saturation and lengthening upgrade cycles, which vendors have attempted to offset by offering incentives such as the iPhone Upgrade Program ('http://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program').

On Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company recently sold its 1 billionth iPhone ('https://www.macrumors.com/2016/07/27/apple-has-sold-1-billion-iphones/').

Article Link: Samsung Doubles Apple's Share of Smartphone Market as Customers Await iPhone 7 ('https://www.macrumors.com/2016/07/28/samsung-doubles-apple-share-ahead-iphone-7/')

[doublepost=1469721847][/doublepost]Market share isn't a business model in this modern world. Apple has, what, 90% of smartphone profits worldwide.

Samsung's profits are now about 2/3rds of Apple's. How long before they surpass them?

If they brought out a 4" phone with a headphone jack, I would start investigating. Apple's whole direction is wrong. So sad to see.