iPhone 5 and 4S Top Samsung Galaxy S III in Worldwide Smartphone Shipments in 4Q 2012

69650 · Feb 21, 2013

BaldiMac said:
Wow!!!! You really need to find a way to monetize your ability to see into alternate realities!

Here I was thinking that the variety of Samsung's smartphones at multiple price points was an advantage in building market share. If they knew that they could sell the same number by only offering two (relatively high-end) models, it would seem that they could make a lot more money!

Alternative reality? What you said above is exactly what Apple has been doing for the past five years and its made them a lot of money.

BaldiMac · Feb 21, 2013

Shaun said:
Alternative reality? What you said above is exactly what Apple has been doing for the past five years and its made them a lot of money.

I have no idea how that translates to Samsung. Apple has iOS as their differentiator. Samsung has to compete with all the other Android OEMs. It they eliminate their low end, they lose a whole lot of market share. There is no evidence that would lead to more S3 sales. (Other than your window into an alternate reality, if that really exists.

)

Digital Skunk · Feb 21, 2013

iGrip said:
You don't seem to understand Apple.

They are all about fighting the forces of darkness and evil. They come from behind, and they leapfrog over their big competitors, nimble as only a small company with a visionary leader can be.

Apple doesn't care about trends. Apple doesn't care about market share. Apple doesn't care about profits.

Apple cares about only one thing: Making the best gosh-darn products that they possibly can. That is why they get up in the morning - to bring great products to you, and for no other reason.

And everybody who buys even one Apple product can be part of all this. People can actually elevate their status in society simply by buying a product. I'm not sure any company in the history of the world has accomplished that before. It is magical.

Watch yourself there, Tiger. "better handsets and OS bar none"?

/s

A nice dream indeed. I guess if everyone knows its fictional, it's okay to have that notion.

That other part is becoming a fact.

newagemac · Feb 21, 2013

iGrip said:
The facts are that Apple had a 5 year lead over anybody else in the telephone manufacturing industry. But that was more than 5 years ago.

You are sadly mistaken. The fact is Samsung and others had a lead of two decades or more over Apple in the telephone manufacturing industry. Then Apple swooped in out of nowhere and basically took their lunch. Apple now has over 70% of their phone manufacturing industry profits with several of the manufacturers having gone out business, some bought up while in shambles (Motorola), and others barely hanging on by a thread.

Apple decimated companies that had a huge head start on them. Only Samsung is left standing really as being profitable but even they have to wonder how they let Apple come in and take most of their profits. It was supposed to have been theirs.

Samsung has to be pretty pissed about that. An upstart PC company in just a few years totally dominating them when they have been making phones for decades. The only thing they have left to boast is marketshare... something they already had (with Symbian/Windows Mobile) before Apple came in and took most of their profits in their entire industry. Within just a few years. Hilarious. Kinda sad too.

kdarling · Feb 21, 2013

newagemac said:
You are sadly mistaken. The fact is Samsung and others had a lead of two decades or more over Apple in the telephone manufacturing industry.

And that's why they had over a half decade of legacy smartphones that they thought they needed to stay backward compatible with.

Apple decimated companies that had a huge head start on them.

Yep, because Apple had no legacy smartphones to worry about at the time.

NOW, a half decade later, Apple is in a legacy position as well, and it shows in their hesitation to make more than minimal changes in display size or UI.

Only Samsung is left standing really as being profitable but even they have to wonder how they let Apple come in and take most of their profits.

Both companies are making more money than ever. The market grew to accommodate both of them.

iGrip · Feb 21, 2013

AppleScruff1 said:
Is that a subtle hint about the iWatch?

Har!

iGrip · Feb 21, 2013

extricated said:
In other words, I would easily expect Android as an OS to outsell iOS. A lot of people make smartphones that use Android - Acer, Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and many more.
When we pit "iPhone" against "Android", we're comparing a couple of devices to possibly hundreds.

That's just not fair! It reminds me of how people try to compare OSX against Windows. It makes it sound like pretty much nobody uses Macs - way less than 10%.

But if you compare Apple against Dell, or Apple against HP, or Apple against Lenovo, things start to look a lot different. Apple sells well against the likes of a Lenovo, and so it makes it look like just as many people use Macs as use say, Acer computers.

So it is a lot more fair to compare iOS phones with an individual phone like the Samsung Galaxy S3, When you do that, it looks like Android isn't doing all that hot.

Apple sells lots more smart phones than Huawei. And if you consider that lots of Samsung smartphones aren't very nice, then you could say that Apple sells more nice smartphones than Samsung.

But you can't really compare iOS phones to Android phones, especially worldwide. In the United States, it comes out more fair, but worldwide, it is better to compare to any one other individual smartphone.

/s

Arfdog · Feb 21, 2013

Greg. said:
Who cares? I'd rather not be a sheep and have a phone that not everyone else has.

Isn't it sad that you buy your personal phone based on what someone else is using?

Arfdog · Feb 21, 2013

iGrip said:
Those were the guys Apple had a 5 year lead on at the time. None of them seems to have done well in the meantime, but M$ may yet gain some significant penetration. They've done that sort of thing in the past, due to nothing more than pure cussedness at times.

----------

Apple is a scrappy little underdog which was started by hippies in their mother's garage. And it always will be.

The only time I think that MS has emerged the winner from an underdog position is the Xbox. All other times (zune, phones, tablets) it has foundered pitifully.

Arfdog · Feb 21, 2013

kdarling said:
And that's why they had over a half decade of legacy smartphones that they thought they needed to stay backward compatible with.

Yep, because Apple had no legacy smartphones to worry about at the time.

NOW, a half decade later, Apple is in a legacy position as well, and it shows in their hesitation to make more than minimal changes in display size or UI.

Both companies are making more money than ever. The market grew to accommodate both of them.

Spending resources to maintain backward compatibility with outdated phones? Who's fault/decision was that? Samsung's.

Apple could become stuck in the same position. But history under Steve Jobs (and hopefully those emulating his vision) has proven otherwise. Because they don't look back, they embrace, develop, and make in mass quantities what people want next.

Arfdog · Feb 21, 2013

Just to summarize for those reading this far:

- LOLs were had about 3 times in succession by 3 different sets of people misunderstanding the chart and 3 different sets berating them.

- Two 2012 Apple smartphone models individually outsold any single 2012 model of any other smartphone sold by any other manufacturer.

- Apple makes the vast majority of the profit (60%) in the phone industry. If that shocks you, don't even think to include profits from the tablet and MP3 player markets.

- Non-Apple smartphone sales combined (172m) still beat Apple's top 2 smartphone sales combined (45m).

- Android is freely distributed, iOS is not available for distribution. Android out-numbers iOS enormously.

- Samsung introduces haphazard features. Apple has a haphazard history of feature introduction.

GermanyChris · Feb 21, 2013

iGrip said:
You don't seem to understand Apple.

They are all about fighting the forces of darkness and evil. They come from behind, and they leapfrog over their big competitors, nimble as only a small company with a visionary leader can be.

Apple doesn't care about trends. Apple doesn't care about market share. Apple doesn't care about profits.

Apple cares about only one thing: Making the best gosh-darn products that they possibly can. That is why they get up in the morning - to bring great products to you, and for no other reason.

And everybody who buys even one Apple product can be part of all this. People can actually elevate their status in society simply by buying a product. I'm not sure any company in the history of the world has accomplished that before. It is magical.

Watch yourself there, Tiger. "better handsets and OS bar none"?

/s

Please tell me you're not serious!!

AppleScruff1 · Feb 21, 2013

germanychris said:
please tell me you're not serious!!

roflmao!

matttye · Feb 22, 2013

Shaun said:
Let me try and explain as you seem a bit confused.

If Samsung followed the same strategy as Apple and just had two models - the Galaxy S3 and S3 mini then they would have sold more units than Apple. Is that clear enough for you? The only reason the iPhone is ahead is because Samsung's smartphone sales are spread across several different phones.

We know this because published figures for 2012 show that Android now accounts for approx 70% of the market. Samsung and Apple account for about 90% of smartphone shipments so it follows that Samsung's overall smartphone shipments must be very healthy indeed. I'm not trying to promote Samsung or anyone else, just making a point about the original article.

You seem to think anyone who doesn't demonstrate blind allegiance to the Apple faith is somehow a troll. I go my own way. I don't follow the crowd. I bought the iPhone because I have lots of Apple kit and it's just easier to integrate the iPhone into that set up with iCloud. I would prefer a larger screen like they have on the S3 but I'm happy enough with my iPhone.

IMHO it would be a very sad day if this forum followed some of the other Mac forums and essentially turned into an Apple love fest with anyone making negative comments routinely hounded and castigated.

So what you're saying is that if Samsung didn't sell cheap £120 outright phones running Android, people would take up contracts or buy the £400 Galaxy S3 (£550 when it first came out) outright.

Yeah, that makes no sense.

Samsung sells budget phones and therefore appeals to a larger percentage of the market. There are people who can't afford an iPhone or a Galaxy S3 but they will buy a cheaper Samsung handset. You can't say that those people would have bought a Galaxy S3 if the cheaper handset didn't exist.

The only way your post makes sense is if you combine the sales of current generation similar priced handsets like the S3 and Note 2 and compare that to the 5, and likewise if you compare the S2 and Note to the 4S.

Even then it's not a completely fair comparison because for every person that upgrades from the S3 to the Note 2 (and the S2 to the Note), that's two sales, whereas iPhone 5 users who would buy the next iPhone have nothing to upgrade to.

Hope this makes sense

nia820 · Feb 22, 2013

Adding 2 phones against 1. Who comes up with this stuff?

jefflawsonn · Feb 22, 2013

As per my opinion, I guess quarterly figures helps generate more articles but it would be nice to see some comparisons of annual figures since Apple and Samsung produce their new lead phones once a year.

69650 · Feb 22, 2013

matttye said:
So what you're saying is that if Samsung didn't sell cheap £120 outright phones running Android, people would take up contracts or buy the £400 Galaxy S3 (£550 when it first came out) outright.

Yeah, that makes no sense.

Samsung sells budget phones and therefore appeals to a larger percentage of the market. There are people who can't afford an iPhone or a Galaxy S3 but they will buy a cheaper Samsung handset. You can't say that those people would have bought a Galaxy S3 if the cheaper handset didn't exist.

The only way your post makes sense is if you combine the sales of current generation similar priced handsets like the S3 and Note 2 and compare that to the 5, and likewise if you compare the S2 and Note to the 4S.

Even then it's not a completely fair comparison because for every person that upgrades from the S3 to the Note 2 (and the S2 to the Note), that's two sales, whereas iPhone 5 users who would buy the next iPhone have nothing to upgrade to.

Hope this makes sense

I don't know what is so difficult to understand.

Apple has 3 iPhone models currently on sale - 5, 4s and 4. That's intended to cover as many people's budget as possible. Ok

All I said is that instead of having lots of different phones if Samsung basically did the same and made just 3 smartphones for budget, mid-range and high-end customers like Apple do then those phones would probably be in that top 10 list.

It's not that complicated.

As an investor I'm simply looking to see who has momentum, is the iPhone losing it's appeal or is it still top dog, are Samsung and the S3 taking sales away from the iPhone or simply taking sales away from other Android handsets.

matttye · Feb 22, 2013

Shaun said:
I don't know what is so difficult to understand.

Apple has 3 iPhone models currently on sale - 5, 4s and 4. That's intended to cover as many people's budget as possible. Ok

All I said is that instead of having lots of different phones if Samsung basically did the same and made just 3 smartphones for budget, mid-range and high-end customers like Apple do then those phones would probably be in that top 10 list.

It's not that complicated.

As an investor I'm simply looking to see who has momentum, is the iPhone losing it's appeal or is it still top dog, are Samsung and the S3 taking sales away from the iPhone or simply taking sales away from other Android handsets.

I understand what you're saying perfectly and it does make sense that sales of each individual device would increase if there were less phones saturating the market.

What I'm saying is that you cannot make the assumption that market share from low end phones would go to medium or higher end phones.

It seems to me that Samsung currently only has two iPhone 5 competitors; the Note 2 and S3. By your logic, sales of both of those devices combined should be greater than the iPhone 5's. However, you would need to deduct a sale from everybody who has bought both devices.

iGrip · Feb 22, 2013

Arfdog said:
The only time I think that MS has emerged the winner from an underdog position is the Xbox. All other times (zune, phones, tablets) it has foundered pitifully.

Don't forget MSDOS. Microsoft went from zero to sixty in no time, and lept ahead of Apple and everyone else in the process. Now there is only one OS for personal computers that sells well.

Or Word. "PC Magazine reviewed 57 different [word processing] programs in one January 1986 issue." according to Wikipedia. Fast forward 25 years, and there is only one word processing program that matters.

I forgot about the X-Box, but that too is a good example of why I would never bet against M$.

My guess is that within 3 years, they will be selling boatloads of cellphone OSs to OEMs. In fact, my guess is that within 3 years, MS will sell more cellphone OSs to OEMs than Apple will sell into the channel.

iGrip · Feb 22, 2013

Arfdog said:
Spending resources to maintain backward compatibility with outdated phones? Who's fault/decision was that? Samsung's.

Apple could become stuck in the same position.

They already are stuck in the same position. They painted themselves into a corner with their small screens and their inability to freely choose screen resolution.

OatmealRocks · Feb 22, 2013

Arfdog said:
Just to summarize for those reading this far:

- LOLs were had about 3 times in succession by 3 different sets of people misunderstanding the chart and 3 different sets berating them.

- Two 2012 Apple smartphone models individually outsold any single 2012 model of any other smartphone sold by any other manufacturer.

- Apple makes the vast majority of the profit (60%) in the phone industry. If that shocks you, don't even think to include profits from the tablet and MP3 player markets.

- Non-Apple smartphone sales combined (172m) still beat Apple's top 2 smartphone sales combined (45m).

- Android is freely distributed, iOS is not available for distribution. Android out-numbers iOS enormously.

- Samsung introduces haphazard features. Apple has a haphazard history of feature introduction.

You have pretty much summed it up. LOL on the comment in BOLD.

Wicked1 · Feb 22, 2013

Squilly said:
Those are some really impressive numbers. Apple, time to play catch up!
$5 says Apple releases the iPhone 5S earlier because of the GS4.

I am not sure the 5S will share the same success as the 4S and the 5 have. Even though it can do more, it seems to be the main consensus for those wanting the larger screens, however what I see is that most like the iPhone (all models) because it is easier to use with iTunes etc, then those using other platforms, however I think this will change if they do not start to redesign their iOS,and make the iPhone 6 more interesting.

A new CPU, Camera, and Siri features just get you so far, they really need to put something in the phone that will trump their rivals and I have not seen them really do this since the iPhone 4 with retina, and the camera in the 4S.

I switched to the Galaxy Note II for the camera features, and the ability to extend my storage as well as a bigger screen. If Apple increases the IP6 to 4.5 or 4.7 and changes iOS to be more customizable, I will be back in a heartbeat, but until then, I like the larger screen for reading and basic phone features. I feel both OS's do what they need to about the same.

iPhone 5 and 4S Top Samsung Galaxy S III in Worldwide Smartphone Shipments in 4Q 2012

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