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The latest numbers from research firm IDC reveal that the premium smartphone market continues to be a largely two-horse race between Samsung and Apple, which accounted for 21.7% and 14.1% market share in the second quarter respectively. The rival tech companies combined for 35.8% quarterly market share, finishing well ahead of emerging Chinese competitors Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo during the three-month period ending June 30.

iPhone-6-Galaxy-S6-Edge.jpg

IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that smartphone vendors shipped a total of 337.2 million smartphones worldwide in the second quarter, an 11.6% increase from the 302.1 million units shipped in the year-ago quarter. The growth was driven by not only premium devices sold by Apple and Samsung, but also the growing number of affordable handsets available in emerging countries such as China and India.

IDC-Apple-Samsung-Q215.jpg

Apple increased 2.4 percentage points to 14.1% during the second quarter compared to its 11.7% market share in the year-ago quarter, while market leader Samsung experienced a year-over-year decline as its market share slipped from 24.8% to 21.7%. Apple closed the gap on the continued strength of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, with the company announcing it sold 47.5 million iPhones in the third quarter of the fiscal year earlier this week.

Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the smartphone operating system race, trailed by Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo with 8.9%, 5.3% and 4.8% market share in the second quarter respectively. All other smartphone makers accounted for a combined 45.2% quarterly market share. Overall mobile phone shipments in the second quarter reached 464.6 million units worldwide.

Article Link: Apple and Samsung Combined for Over One-Third of Smartphone Sales in Second Quarter
 
And 100% of the profits between the two of them. There is something strange about companies selling phones below cost unless it is really the Telcom's that are taking the loss on the equipment.
 
What companies are in the "other" category? That's a huge percentage for other. I know LG is probably in there, and Blackberry (lol), but that's a lot of also-rans to make up almost half the market.
 
What companies are in the "other" category? That's a huge percentage for other. I know LG is probably in there, and Blackberry (lol), but that's a lot of also-rans to make up almost half the market.

Sony, Microsoft, ZTE, Sharp, NEC, Toshiba, Casio, Amazon, Gionee, Oppo, Oneplus, BLU, etc.
You'd be surprised at how many companies are still trying to bet their futures on smartphones.
 
Don't forget Microsoft - they just took and $8.4 BILLION dollar write off on their purchase of Nokia. Clearly there are a lot of companies capturing 1-2% of the market.
 
I love seeing Samsung drop, I will never forgive them for two years of torture I survived as an owner of Galaxy S III. Go Apple!

Your horrible experience with them was the Galaxy S III? One of their better devices?

Never had the original Galaxy S? Released with Android 2.x and immediately abandoned at Android 2.x. Try to get a 3rd-party upgrade through CyanogenMod and completely lose GPS and the ability to call 911.

Never had a Galaxy S II? It did get an Android 4.1, but also had the bad eMMC/NVRAM that would die (GT-I9100, SGH-I777, SGH-T989, etc.). Self-corrupting storage, terrible GPS, USB wakelock issues, etc.

There were probably a dozen different devices all with the "Galaxy S" and "Galaxy S II" name.
Samsung uses their customers as part of their Research and Development. They rapid-fire crap out terrible device after terrible device (that's why every carrier always got a different looking phone, they were testing a ton of different builds and configurations), then quickly dropped support for them.

The Galaxy S III is when they started trying to clean up their act.
 
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Sony, Nokia (Newkia)/Microsoft, LG, HTC, just off the top of my head.

I love seeing Samsung drop, I will never forgive them for two years of torture I survived as an owner of Galaxy S III. Go Apple!
So because you didn't like one of their handsets you want the only firm who can challenge Apple to keep on their toes with innovation to go under. Mmm.. Interesting mind set..
 
gotta love the spin. Rather than saying Apple trailed Samsung, the headline talks about their combined sales.

It's really a 2 horse race. Why not talk about the 2 horses involved? The article itself clearly says Apple trails Samsung in sales, and also that Apple had a HUGE gain from last year (35-47 million), while Samsung is pretty flat. It's biased to say that one or the other should be the headline.
 
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Your horrible experience with them was the Galaxy S III? One of their better devices?

Never had the original Galaxy S? Released with Android 2.x and immediately abandoned at Android 2.x. Try to get a 3rd-party upgrade through CyanogenMod and completely lose GPS and the ability to call 911.

Never had a Galaxy S II? It did get an Android 4.1, but also had the bad eMMC/NVRAM that would die (GT-I9100, SGH-I777, SGH-T989, etc.). Self-corrupting storage, terrible GPS, USB wakelock issues, etc.

There were probably a dozen different devices all with the "Galaxy S" and "Galaxy S II" name.
Samsung uses their customers as part of their Research and Development. They rapid-fire crap out terrible device after terrible device (that's why every carrier always got a different looking phone, they were testing a ton of different builds and configurations), then quickly dropped support for them.

The Galaxy S III is when they started trying to clean up their act.

Yeah, nice phone. But if you were a heavy user you were looking at 6 hours battery life once your battery lost a bit of its umph.

Reviews are that even the S6 still can't make it through a heavy use day. Pathetic for a phone that size with a battery that big.
 
I don't think it's great for consumers when 2 companies dominate so much.
From my perspective I would much prefer if there were a half dozen similarly dominant, or even competitive, players competing for our affections through relentless innovation and pricing.
I wonder if this Apple/Samsung dominance will ever change (in the reasonable near future)?
 
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