Analysts say Apple has beaten Samsung to become world's largest smartphone vendor

The Verge ^ | Thursday, January 29, 2015 | James Vincent

[Star Traveler]

Samsung is refusing to release concrete figures, but some industry experts are giving the win to Apple.

After recording the biggest quarterly profit by any company ever, Apple might have earned itself another accolade: world's largest smartphone vendor. It's clear that the iPhone maker had a bumper quarter, reporting record sales of 74.5 million smartphones. However, Samsung is only saying that it sold 95 million total handsets, of which, it says, somewhere between 71 million and 75 million (the "high 70 percent") were smartphones.

So has Apple finally beaten Samsung? It's impossible to say with absolute certainty. Samsung isn't likely to give up any more information on the topic, and analysts and industry experts are hedging their bets accordingly. Some are marking it as a dead heat while others are claiming Apple as the winner. Counterpoint Research, which polls global distributors for its figures, says the iPhone maker is definitely ahead — pegging Samsung's shipments at only 73.8 million. Ben Bajarin, an analyst for Creative Strategies also gives the win to Apple (see chart above), but Strategy Analytics claims both vendors shipped 74.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter last year.

[BunnySlippers]

The big screen sold to Chinese customers. The small screen to mostly North American customers.

I will never buy a phone with a big screen. I already have an iPad which I love!

[BunnySlippers]

This quarter it was Cook’s ability to forge some lucrative ties with Chinese phone companies. One wonders how long he can do that ... Beyond a few quarters.

And the Chinese wanted the big screen which Apple gave them this time.

[Swordmaker]

Another thread about Apple overtaking Samsung in number of smartphones sold — PING!

Apple v. Samsung Ping!

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[Begin]

[Swordmaker]

Their products generally are on par with the competitors'. Their success is in their marketing and maintaining brand loyalty.

And that is the MANTRA of the people who DO NOT USE the products, whistling past the success of the largest, most successful corporation on the planet. "It's all hype," they cry. "It's just marketing," they whine. "It's brand loyalty," they plead, ignoring that over ONE BILLION iOS devices (as of December 22, 2014) cannot have been sold to the same people merely by "brand loyalty."

[Cementjungle]

...cannot have been sold to the same people merely by "brand loyalty."

That's a huge part of their overall strategy. They've for years been making deals with schools, giving Mac stuff to them for cheap or even free. Kids grow up not knowing how to use real computers so when they become adults they tend to stick with what they know. They built a cult following where people are willing to pay a premium to be part of the "in crowd" by sporting the Apple logo.

[Swordmaker]

That's a huge part of their overall strategy. They've for years been making deals with schools, giving Mac stuff to them for cheap or even free. Kids grow up not knowing how to use real computers so when they become adults they tend to stick with what they know. They built a cult following where people are willing to pay a premium to be part of the "in crowd" by sporting the Apple logo.

You anti-Apple naysayers keep spouting that old canard, but you cannot account for over 1.1 BILLION Apple products sold WORLD WIDE when Apple gave those computers away to schools in the late 1970s. After Steve Jobs left, the management at Apple discontinued free Apple's for schools. . . and the concepts of word processing or spreadsheet are identical, whether you learn on a Windows or a Mac computer. Your argument simply doesn't hold any water.

[Morpheus2009]

It’s good marketing. Good marketing involves doing tasks like donating computers to schools. Apple also isn’t the only one doing it, either, so it’s not an unfair advantage in and of itself.