Apple Hits New High with 8.8% of Worldwide Mobile Phone Market in 1Q 2012

[MacRumors]

Research firm IDC today released its estimates of global mobile phone and smartphone shipments for the first quarter 2012, revealing that Apple set a record high in taking 8.8% of the overall mobile phone market. The performance just barely topped Apple's 8.7% share in the previous quarter, which was the launch quarter for the iPhone 4S.

Worldwide Mobile Phone Shipments in 1Q12 in Millions of Units (Source: IDC)

Apple's year-over-year growth of 88% in an overall market which shrank by 1.5% enabled the iPhone maker to solidify its hold on third place in the overall mobile phone market behind Samsung and Nokia. Nokia had been the market leader for well over a decade, but Samsung surged into the lead for the first time during the quarter.

Worldwide Smartphone Shipments in 1Q12 in Millions of Units (Source: IDC)

Looking at the narrower smartphone market, which now comprises 36% of the global mobile phone market, IDC pegs Apple in second place, with its 88% year-over-year growth easily topping the overall segment's growth of 42.5%. But Apple's growth was easily overshadowed by Samsung, which rode the strength of its portfolio of Android-based devices to year-over-year growth of 267% and the top spot in the smartphone rankings.

"The race between Apple and Samsung remained tight during the quarter, even as both companies posted growth in key areas," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends program. "Apple launched its popular iPhone 4S in additional key markets, most notably in China, and Samsung experienced continued success from its Galaxy Note smartphone/tablet and other Galaxy smartphones. With other companies in the midst of major strategic transitions, the contest between Apple and Samsung will bear close observation as hotly-anticipated new models are launched."

Samsung's shipment numbers suffer from significant uncertainty, however, as the company no longer releases official data on its sales for competitive reasons. Consequently, analysts have had to resort to rough estimates for Samsung's numbers, and IDC believes that Samsung registered 42.2 million smartphone shipments to easily top Apple's publicly-released number of 35.1 million units.

Research firm Strategy Analytics last week offered a similar estimate of Samsung's shipments at 44.5 million units for the quarter, but IHS iSuppli painted a very different picture with its estimate of only 32 million smartphone units for Samsung, which would have left Apple atop the rankings for the quarter.

Article Link: Apple Hits New High with 8.8% of Worldwide Mobile Phone Market in 1Q 2012

[aicul]

Just goes to prouve how ego-centered other phone makers were in staying content with valueless incremental improvements to their boring products

[designgeek]

Queue a week of market share posts on Daring Fireball.

[codo]

What makes these stats even more incredible is the profit Apple makes on each iPhone sale. Others don't come close.

[wikus]

Originally Posted by codo

What makes these stats even more incredible is the profit Apple makes on each iPhone sale. Others don't come close.

Thats because the others haven't implemented their own version of 'Apple Tax'

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by wikus

Thats because the others haven't implemented their own version of 'Apple Tax'

That's because others don't have phones that aren't sold on price only.

Seriously, what is this "Apple Tax" supposed to be? Apple offers products for a price that they decide. Nobody forces anyone to pay that price. If Apple sells products then it is because people think they are worth it.

[inkswamp]

Originally Posted by wikus

Thats because the others haven't implemented their own version of 'Apple Tax'

I love simplistic analysis.

No, it's because Apple isn't flooding the market with 50+ phones every year. They aim for one design with a couple variations in color and storage space and that's it. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how that's a lot cheaper than Samsung's throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.

[laserbeam273]

Have to say, Samsung is proving to be quite competitive.

It'll be interesting to see how the market shares pan out after a couple years. I know here in Sydney, Australia everyone seems to want or have an iPhone.

[Sabenth]

having used an android phone and got the 4s i have to say i prefer apples products over all these android systems. I am not really interested in who is the market leader what i am interested in is a product that works is simple to use and not to much mucking around to find things and how to turn things of.

[fermat-au]

It would be nice if the tables extended beyond the top 5 manufacturers. For smartphones Other is 27% (more then Apple), with only Samsung, Apple and Other growing, I would like to know from who in Other the growth is coming. Who is likely to be in the 3 - 5 spots next year.

[StealthGhost]

Originally Posted by inkswamp

I love simplistic analysis.

No, it's because Apple isn't flooding the market with 50+ phones every year. They aim for one design with a couple variations in color and storage space and that's it. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how that's a lot cheaper than Samsung's throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.

I love how often the availability of choice is somehow a bad thing on these forums.

Seems to be working great for Samsung btw. I bet the Android manufacturers love that Apple doesn't want to compete in LTE/4g, in larger screen sizes, in physical keyboards, in huge batteries, etc.

[SBlue1]

ZTE is up that high? I hate hate hate my ZTE Blade! Its such a crappy piece of junk. The battery has a random generator which decides how may hours it is gonna run today with values between two and twenty. Half of the pathetic 512 mb of RAM are already used by the system leaving enough space for more than 25 apps.

My grandma said "buy cheap buy twice" and she was so right. I would have bought another phone if I was not locked to my provider.

My next phone is the iPhone. Can't wait.

[TMay]

Originally Posted by inkswamp

I love simplistic analysis.

No, it's because Apple isn't flooding the market with 50+ phones every year. They aim for one design with a couple variations in color and storage space and that's it. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how that's a lot cheaper than Samsung's throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.

Quite right.

As a generalization, I like to look at this as Apple generates 75% of overall smartphone profits, and of the 25% balance, Samsung probably takes 75%. That's not much left over for the others, but it is still a growing market.

I think that you will find that Android OEM's are getting poor results from catering to the technophile. Look to Samsung to prune its many models back to better compete with Apple in profitability and marketing.

[Michael Scrip]

Originally Posted by StealthGhost

I love how often the availability of choice is somehow a bad thing on these forums.

Seems to be working great for Samsung btw. I bet the Android manufacturers love that Apple doesn't want to compete in LTE/4g, in larger screen sizes, in physical keyboards, in huge batteries, etc.

Samsung may be moving a lot of units... but what this particular comment thread was referring to is profitability.

Samsung certainly covers all the bases in shape, size and form-factors... but at the expense of designing and developing 6-8 new phones a year.

Sure... Samsung isn't gonna go broke. But when they have to build half a dozen new phones every year... AND support older phones with Android OS updates... that cuts into profit greatly.

But you're right... Samsung's approach to the smartphone market is working great for them.

And so is Apple's method.

[swagi]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Research firm Strategy Analytics last week offered a similar estimate of Samsung's shipments at 44.5 million units for the quarter, but IHS iSuppli painted a very different picture with its estimate of only 32 million smartphone units for Samsung, which would have left Apple atop the rankings for the quarter.

And nowhere in this article or forums a mention that Samsung's numbers will explode this very thursday. Heard of the Galaxy S3? Shame on you...because this will be the definition of what Apple has to achieve with iPhone 5.

[bushido]

Originally Posted by inkswamp

No, it's because Apple isn't flooding the market with 50+ phones every year. They aim for one design with a couple variations in color and storage space and that's it. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how that's a lot cheaper than Samsung's throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.

and how is that bad? its just a different approach, not everyone needs a 300 Euro phone. im not necessarily fond of android or the samsung plastic crap but that doesnt mean their business strategy is bad. they have their high budget Galaxy and nexus phones for tech freaks as well as low budget phones for people like my mother.

both apple and samsung make enough money so why should i even care anyway ^^ having options is GREAT

oh and the anticipation for the Galaxy S III announcement here in germany is HUGE. its covered everywhere even with so little details out. something i used to only see with future iPhone gossip

[Taz Mangus]

Originally Posted by fermat-au

It would be nice if the tables extended beyond the top 5 manufacturers. For smartphones Other is 27% (more then Apple), with only Samsung, Apple and Other growing, I would like to know from who in Other the growth is coming. Who is likely to be in the 3 - 5 spots next year.

That table reflects handsets not just smart phones. The Android phone manufacturers lump dumb phones, feature phones and smart phones together as handsets. It would be interesting to see that broke out by type of handsets.

Let's break that out by type of handset and see how that looks. That will be a telling tale.

[mabaker]

Samsung is a corrupt company and I'm glad Apple is distancing itself from them especially in the supply chain.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-1...arrest/2407266

[bushido]

Originally Posted by mabaker

Samsung is a corrupt company and I'm glad Apple is distancing itself from them especially in the supply chain.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-1...arrest/2407266

distancing itself how? + both CEO's meet this month

[HishamAkhtar]

I love that Samsung is ahead of Apple in this. It'll keep Apple on it's toes and prevent them from pulling another S model in the near future hopefully.

[roadbloc]

Apple are beginning to get impressive in terms of marketshare. They still have a long way to go to win the apparent thermonuclear war against Android though.

[Sensation]

Wow Samsung is dominating, I imagine when the SGS3 comes out their share will shoot up even further!

[SactoGuy18]

In my humble opinion, what could send Apple to permanent domination of the cellphone market are two things:

1. Once they can get a large, steady supply of the Qualcomm-designed MDM9615 "all-in-one" cellphone chipset, don't be surprised the next iPhone will essentially become a "universal" cellphone that works on just about any CDMA, GSM and 3GPP LTE implementation. And if Apple designs the antenna right, it might just happen.

2. The new iPhone implements NFC mobile payments that is compatible with the widely-used FeliCa standard and the new ISIS system that is rolling out this summer.

[Rogifan]

Originally Posted by HishamAkhtar

I love that Samsung is ahead of Apple in this. It'll keep Apple on it's toes and prevent them from pulling another S model in the near future hopefully.

Yeah because the 4S has hardly sold at all. Just because the physical look and feel was the same as the 4 doesn't mean it wasn't a different phone.

[foodog]

Originally Posted by wikus

Thats because the others haven't implemented their own version of 'Apple Tax'

... or the appeal of Apple products allows them to charge more in an open market. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand