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What I don’t understand about this article, is that it is written as if apple sold more smartphones than samsung for the year, when it was only for the fourth quarter.

For the entirety of 2014, samsung sold over 116 million more smartphones then apple. Source Table 2 :
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2996817

I’m not complaining about apple beating samsung for the quarter, I was just confused at first.

These writers may be going on the basis of some information that I saw posted on one of these Apple threads. It showed that Samsung’s sales has been slowing and reversing over the last six quarters. So anyone that is writing on this subject regularly would have known that Samsung has been going downhill for the last six quarters. Basically that trend with Samsung over the last six quarters ... finally “crossed the line” and Apple’s sales kept going up.

For the entirety of 2014, samsung sold over 116 million more smartphones then apple. Source Table 2 :

There is only one big problem with the claims of Samsung selling more "smartphones" than Apple sold. They NEVER did. Gartner counts ALL of Samsung's phone shipments as if they were "smartphones", but they were not all smartphones. Samsung never broke out their shipments of phones by the categories they sold. . . which were not and have never been all smartphones.

In late 2013, Judge Lucy Koh forced Samsung to reveal the actual mix of phone products they sold during discovery for the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement trial. . . figures they have never revealed before. When Samsung produced their actual shipped numbers, it turns out that of those numbers they have been reporting, only ~30% were smartphones. The other ~70% were divided among limited function Android "Feature Phones" and "Dumb Phones with Android OS" in this approximate product mix:

~ 30% Samsung Phones Shipped — Android or Windows Smartphones which were a computerized device with a phone connected, including the ability to connect to the internet with ability to see full desktop web display, download apps from a centralized store, have a high quality camera/video system for recording and playing back images and to stream said images to large format monitors or TVs, sending and receiving Multi-media messages, email, large capacity storage, downloading and playing either streaming or stored media including movies, music, podcasts, had WIFI capability, Bluetooth capability, and in general is a computer with a phone attached. Minimum onboard storage 8GB or more.
~ 40% Samsung Phones Shipped — "Feature Phones, running Android operating systems with selected applications preloaded, but no capability to add more apps. Games limited to those already pre-loaded, as are any utility apps. Access to the internet is limited to Mobile web, email, MMS, limited camera and video. Depending on the level of Feature phone may have the ability to view streaming video and movies, but not store movies. On board storage very limited. Storage under 4GB.
~ 30% Samsung Phones Shipped — Android Standard or Dumb phones for markets without Internet connections. No internet connection at all, limited email over cellular connection, Messaging only, no MMS, limited camera or video on some models. Flip or candy bar phones, messaging by ten key pads. Sold in all markets but primarily for 3rd world markets.

In the last year, Samsung revised that mix by emphasizing more of the two bottom tiers over the smartphone tier. . . and went to only 19% smartphone's shipped by the last quarter. . . and increased the Feature and dumb phone mix.

Analysts also find that many of the 225 Android phone makers do not produce smartphones at all. . . but concentrate on the middle and bottom tier Feature and mostly dumb phones where they compete on price. Many of them turn out white and black box phones that others put their brand names on. . . but they are not smartphones. These phones are sold to the 60% of the world's population that has never connected to the Internet. . . and cannot because it is just not available in their area while cellular phone service is.