Apple Passes Nokia and Holds Off Samsung to Become World's Top Smartphone Vendor

[MacRumors]

Just hours after research firm IDC released data showing Apple dramatically outpacing the overall mobile phone industry in year-over-year growth for the second quarter of 2011, Strategy Analytics has confirmed that Apple has indeed become the world's largest smartphone manufacturer. In that smaller but faster-growing submarket, Apple dethroned long-time leader Nokia and just barely held off a fast-rising Samsung to take the top spot.

Alex Spektor, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, "Global smartphone shipments grew a healthy 76 percent annually to reach a record 110 million units in Q2 2011. We had previously reported on Apple becoming the largest smartphone vendor in terms of revenue and profits. Now, just four years after the release of the original iPhone, Apple has become the world's largest smartphone vendor by volume with 18 percent market share. Apple's growth remained strong as it expanded distribution worldwide, particularly in China and Asia."

With both Apple and Nokia reporting their quarterly financial results last week, it was confirmed that Apple had passed Nokia, but some analysts had suggested that Samsung might surge past both companies on the strength of its Android-based handset sales. While Samsung did indeed achieve remarkable 520% year-over-year smartphone growth to move from 5.0% of the market to 17.5%, Apple's performance was strong enough to at least temporarily take the crown with 18.5% of the market.

Article Link: Apple Passes Nokia and Holds Off Samsung to Become World's Top Smartphone Vendor

 

[andyr2120]

Funny

Samsung is not even the top Android device seller in the U.S. market. I didn't expect them to be so strong in global sales (although I realize they are a huge and very successful company in many different markets).

 

[Andronicus]

Good job apple.

 

[mrochester]

It looks like Apple's status as the worlds top smartphone vendor will be short lived.

 

[Ijustfarted]

Great Job Apple. I always love hearing about them doing well.

I'm still pretty sure my next phone will be a samsung though

 

[shartypants]

Great for Apple! I hope Apple comes out with a cheaper model, see if they can stunt Samsung's grown a little

 

[esquared]

Apple Store down

Anyone notice the Apple Store has been down for over an hour?

 

[res1233]

God I hate censor mods deleting my posts... Anyway, this is (as always) amazing considering how Apple only sells one phone, and one previous-gen.

 

[dongmin]

There's a reason why Apple is going after Samsung with all the IP lawsuits. Samsung is becoming the dominant Android vendor and smartphone vendor.

 

[arn]

God I hate censor mods deleting my posts...

then don't respond to obvious spam.

arn

 

[res1233]

then don't respond to obvious spam.

arn

Or you could... Not delete my posts.

Apple bug reporter is down too btw...

 

[FrozenTomato]

wow all that cheap samsung phones are selling well

 

[Piggie]

Isn't this a bit like saying:

Well we have 20 companies, all making VHS Players and they each have 4.5% of the market. meaning VHS has 90% market share.

However Apple who makes Betamax has a 10% market share.

Yay Apple. They are the winning company.

 

[JGowan]

It seems like yesterday that Apple had a goal of selling 8M iPhones in 2008 to grab the fabled 1% of the market.

Great job, Apple!

 

[slinky199]

Go go Samsung!

+500% growth!

 

[Truffy]

I'm soooo happy that my favourite computer company is doing so well at selling the most annoying piece of hardware to plague the planet*

*mobile phones in general, not iPhones specifically

 

[Lennholm]

wow all that cheap samsung phones are selling well

Not his again! How is being cheaper something bad? How is having many options in different price segments bad? Samsung have some very cheap phones of crap quality but they also have high quality phones that are both cheaper and better than the iPhone.

 

[Andronicus]

Or you could... Not delete my posts.

Apple bug reporter is down too btw...

Imma side with arn.

 

[CFreymarc]

Comparing Nokia phones to Apple phones is like comparing 4chan to Google.

 

[davie18]

That is some very impressive growth from samsung, people on here would be going mental if apple had similar growth (even though apple's is also very impressive).

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

It looks like Apple's status as the worlds top smartphone vendor will be short lived.

To be bested by apples top copycat maker.

For people who don't think apple revolutionized the smartphone market, the apple AND Samsung growth beg to differ.

 

[nerdo]

Unbelievable growth for Samsung, but putting out just the hardware compare to setting up an entire eco-system that has to be translated, carrier contracts and financially sorted out AND get a local appstore setup etc. In every single country they release the iPhone is very different from dropping android in a piece of hardware.

So to be honest I'm 100X more impressed by apple pulling it off then Samsung. How many companies do you know that not just entered a market but revolutionized it in 3 years? Then end up almost at the top.
Then drop the iPad and create another non-existing market, but noo people still want to pretend Apple didn't do anything special. Everybody can have their preferences, but to pretend this means nothing and apple is just some gimmicky toy company for snobs is pathetic.

Going mental? Well only very sad lonely people would fill the big hole in their life with rooting for a phone maker

That is some very impressive growth from samsung, people on here would be going mental if apple had similar growth (even though apple's is also very impressive).

 

[Winni]

Samsung is not even the top Android device seller in the U.S. market. I didn't expect them to be so strong in global sales (although I realize they are a huge and very successful company in many different markets).

Yeah, it usually comes as a shock to most US-Americans that there is a whole world outside the US borders - a world that does not feel, think or behave American at all...

Anyway. Samsung is a very big player here in Germany, and it's easier to find people with a Samsung Galaxy S1 or S2 than it is to find people with an iPod or an iPhone.

The "rebirth" of Apple still is mostly a US phenomenon.

 

[OllyW]

The "rebirth" of Apple still is mostly a US phenomenon.

I'm not so sure about that...

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/27/most-iphone-growth-from-overseas-verizon-a-small-bang/

 

[acidfast7]

I've gotta say that Samsung's growth is impressive, which is good for Apple.

Stiff competition forces innovation and drives down prices.

However, I am really sad to Nokia go down the crapper, their E-series phones were pretty innovative and used outside the states instead of BlackBerry