TweetTweet As the latest earnings report clearly denotes, Samsung is on a roll.
But if the record profit (nearly double year over year) that the South Korean giant has posted for Q1 2012 wasn’t enough, Apple fanboys will be saddened to learn yet another news.
While a few weeks back, we reported that Samsung has overtaken Nokia as the largest mobile phone vendor, a recent report from IDC shows that Samsung has also surpassed Apple to become the largest smartphone vendor in the world.
Also stubbornly clinging to an irrelevant past, Nokia made lots of noise for a parade of mobile OSes but ultimately didn’t really try to deliver, knocking out the world’s largest cellphone brand from the new race.
The report also notes that, in Q1 2012, the global smartphone market increased 42.5% year over year, despite the fact that the global mobile phone market declined 1.5% over the same period.
Heres an IDC graph that speaks volumes of the general state of the tech world.
Although Apple has also witnessed an increase in shipments, thanks to the release of the iPhone 4S in emergent markets (the Chinese release of the iPhone helped a lot with overall sales), Apple makes only one smartphone: the iPhone.
On the other hand, according to the report, Samsung has claimed the first place in both smartphone and mobile phone sales for the first quarter of the year, thanks to a combination of a diversified smartphone offer and an established relationships with carriers in diverse markets.
IDG News Service – The worldwide smartphone market grew 42.5% year over year during the first quarter, as Samsung Electronics overtook Apple for the smartphone leadership position, according to IDC’s estimates.
As it stands, Samsung has one smartphone for everyone’s needs, ranging from the Android flagship Galaxy Nexus and the niche Galaxy Note phablet, back to the mid range Galaxy Ace and forth to the affordable Galaxy Mini.
According to Ramon Llamas, a senior analyst with IDC: With other companies in the midst of major strategic transitions, the contest between Apple and Samsung will bear close observation as hotly anticipated new models are launched.
The Apple iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 is definitely the battle that will matter the most in 2012.
While HTC is not a company in transition, they did have some rethinking to do, with worldwide sales plummeting last year.
Given the commercial success reported by the One X and One S models (and that’s even before the smartphones have reached US shores), it’s likely that HTC will become the fourth largest smartphone manufacturer in the world by the end of 2012, sailing past RIM.
As the Canadian manufacturer won’t release a new line of smartphones until this autumn, the makers of the BlackBerry seem to be destined for an inglorious market exit.
As it is obvious from IDCs graph, Nokia is the biggest loser in the smartphone manufacturer race over the past year.
The Finns abandoned the Symbian OS and are now heavily pushing Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS.
The company’s current woes make a speedy transition to products powered by the Windows Phone operating system critical, IDC said.
Sales of the Nokia Lumia series, especially the Nokia Lumia 900, are expected to help Nokia regain its foothold and consolidate the third position in the race.
SOURCES IDC TAGS AppleHTCMarket ShareNokiaRIMSamsung NEXT: Samsung and Apple Battle Over The Asian Market.
Jacqui McIntyre is a business journalist based in London, UK. Jacqui has a passion for financial markets and breaking news stories and loves writing about business news, stock market, and economic opinions that matters most to its audience. Jacqui spends a lot of time discovering and researching latest financial markets and industry news stories in order to make sure the latest and greatest stories are brought to you first on BigBoardNews.com.
