No, Samsung has not beaten Apple in Smartphone shipments. They beat Apple in shipping total number of cellular phones in all categories. Not all of the phones Samsung ships are smartphones. . . not by a long shot.
These IDC and Gartner reports ALWAYS assume that the other cellphone makers only manufacture smartphones and report all their output as smartphones. That assumption is completely WRONG! Apple is the only cellular phone maker that only manufacturer that only produces smartphones. All of the other Android makers either produce a mixture of phone products or, choosing not to compete in that market, do not even produce a smartphone at all.
In fact, fewer than 30% of the cell phone product mix that Samsung manufactures are smartphones according to their own testimony as revealed in 2014. In 2013, Samsung shipped 30% smartphones, 40% Feature phones, and another 30% basic phones. . . but they were all loaded with Android OS so they were reported as being "smartphones" in the numbers reported by IDC and Gartner.
Apple does not sell Feature or basic Phones. Many of the other Android makers do not even make smartphones, concentrating instead on Feature or basic phones that sell well in the third world where there is a lack of bandwidth for internet connections. The third world markets was where Samsung made the decision to concentrate efforts in 2014 and later to expand their business.
In May or June of 2014, Samsung actually announced at their stockholders' annual meeting that they were forced by market conditions and the financial situation to REDUCE their smartphones in their product mix to only 19%.
Whether they have increased that back to the 30% of the 2013 levels is unknown. However, if they have, the number of smartphones actually shipped (not Feature phones or basic phones) in the 2nd calendar quarter of 2016 assuming they HAD returned to that 30% level, would be only 23.1 million, compared to Apple's 44.9 million (40.4 million newly shipped plus 4.5 million sold from inventory during that same quarter as per last Tuesday's Financial conference call).
Ergo, Apple sold almost TWICE as many REAL smartphones as did Samsung during that quarter when you compare like product to like product in the same category.
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Apple v. Samsung By the Numbers
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