Estimate claims Apple bested Samsung by 3M to remain top smartphone vendor

Two conflicting estimates paint very different pictures of Samsung's smartphone sales in the March quarter, as the company did not publicly disclose exactly how many smartphones it shipped.

Directly contradicting an earlier report that estimated Samsung shipped 44.5 million smartphones in the first quarter of calendar 2012, IHS iSuppli reported on Friday that Samsung shipped just 32 million smartphones during the quarter. The massive 12.5 million unit difference between the two estimates from Strategy Analytics and iSuppli puts Samsung either well above or below Apple for the quarter.

Unlike Samsung, Apple publicly discloses its quarterly iPhone sales. The company revealed on Tuesday that it sold 35.1 million iPhones last quarter, representing 88 percent unit growth over the same three-month span in 2011.

Apple initially took the smartphone crown from Samsung in the holiday quarter of 2011, in which the company was bolstered by the launch of the iPhone 4S. Whether Apple retained the lead in smartphone shipments in the March quarter, however, remains uncertain.

On Thursday, Samsung confirmed its earlier estimates for the March quarter, and posted profits of 5.85 trillion won, or $5.2 billion. The bulk of the company's profits came from its mobile division.

One point that both Strategy Analytics and iSuppli can agree on is Samsung passed Nokia to become the top overall mobile phone vendor in the March quarter. Strategy Analytics' higher estimate pegs Samsung's mobile phone shipments as 93.5 million, while iSuppli has the company slightly lower, with shipments of 92 million.

"Samsungâ€™s surpassing of Nokia for cellphone market leadership represents not only a changing of the guard among handset brands but also a fundamental shift in the structure of the wireless market," said Ian Fogg, senior principal analyst, mobile for IHS.

"Cellphone market growth is now being generated exclusively by the smartphone segment, and not by the feature phones, entry-level cellphones and ultra-low-cost handsets (ULCH) that had fueled the industryâ€™s expansion over the previous decade. Samsung has successfully ridden the wave of smartphone adoption to attain market leadership. Meanwhile, Nokia is in the midst of transitioning its smartphone strategy, resulting in declining shipments for the company."

Follow AppleInsider on Google News

73 Comments

bullhead

said about 11 years ago

Apple is doomed.

macbook pro

said about 11 years ago

IHS iSuppli's estimate seems far more reasonable than Strategy Analytics. The idea that Apple dropped iPhone sales 5% QoQ while Samsung increased shipped smartphones by nearly 33% was extrememly questionable given that both companies just posted record sales in a holiday quarter and Samsung didn't introduce any notable, new smartphones.

rogifan

said about 11 years ago

Doing a google news search I see the Strategy Analytics figures being reported in mainstream news outlets. Will be interesting to see if this conflicting analysis is reported too.

charlituna

said about 11 years ago

it's worth remembering that shipped does NOT equal sold. Shipped means that it left a warehouse and went to a store. It could be on the shelf still. Heck it could be in an intermediate warehouse still.

Heck even when Samsung says sold it might not mean to a customer. they love to talk about what they sold but they mean is the 'wholesale' to their resellers. So again it could be on a shelf still.

When Apple talks sold they generally mean to a customer and activated. Rarely are channel sales with no end user included.

then there's the issue of sold and then returned in 3 days cause it sucked. No one ever adjusts for that. So for all we know Samsung sold 3 million to end users who then returned them and got something else, including perhaps an iPhone .

macbook pro

said about 11 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by charlituna

Heck even when Samsung says sold it might not mean to a customer. they love to talk about what they sold but they mean is the 'wholesale' to their resellers. So again it could be on a shelf still.

When Apple talks sold they generally mean to a customer and activated. Rarely are channel sales with no end user included.

Interesting thought about returns at Samsung. There are anecdotal reports of return rates as high as 40% for some Android-based smartphones. Meanwhile, ITG Investment Research reports that Samsung Galaxy Tab return rates were 16%.

With all the reports of battery issues, GPS inaccuracy, heating issues, Wi-Fi issues and yellowish screen problems it seems likely that Samsung's top selling smartphone may have a relatively high return rate.