Sam Oliver
Samsung has not publicly disclosed its smartphone shipments for the quarter, but U.K.-based Juniper Research announced on Thursday that its data suggests Samsung shipped more than 52 million smartphones during the three-month span. Its research suggests Samsung has taken a "sizable lead in the smartphone market in terms of unit shipments."
The report cited Samsung's new flagship Galaxy S III as having played a "key role" in Samsung's success, with estimated shipments of 10 million during the second quarter.
Apple announced in its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday that it sold 26 million iPhones in the June quarter, representing 28 percent unit growth year over year. Investors expected Apple would have sold closer to 28 million iPhones during the quarter, and viewed the result as a disappointment.
A slowdown in iPhone growth has been largely attributed to anticipation of Apple's next-generation handset, which is expected to arrive this fall. Apple executives acknowledged this week that rumors of upcoming products likely affected sales during the June quarter.
Following the launch of the iPhone 4S late last year, Apple took the crown of the world's largest smartphone vendor, besting Samsung with sales of 37 million iPhones during the holiday quarter of 2011. But Samsung was estimated to have retaken the top spot, in terms of total smartphone shipments, in the March quarter of this year.
Juniper Research said Thursday that Apple "will undoubtedly narrow the gap" with Samsung later this year, when its next-generation iPhone is expected to arrive.
The sales figures demonstrate once again how the smartphone market has increasingly become a two-horse race between Apple and Samsung. Juniper Research estimates that Research in Motion shipped 7.4 million smartphones in the second quarter, while HTC is pegged at 11.6 million and Nokia at 10.2 million.
A total of 132.9 million smartphones are estimated to have been shipped in the second quarter of calendar 2012. That's up from 105.2 million in the same period a year ago.
While Samsung is estimated to have taken the lead in smartphone shipments, Apple still remains undisputed in terms of profitability. In the June quarter, Apple saw its third-quarter profits reach $8.8 billion, driven largely by the iPhone, while Samsung saw company-wide profits of $5.9 billion during the same period.
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
204 Comments
Nothing better than some healthy competition!!!!
Of course, this headline will be meaningless when the iPhone 5 is released.
Err AI, shipments versus sold? Apples to Oranges? At any rate, other than seeing tech pundits like Leo Laporte shilling for the Galaxy S III, I've only seen one in the wild. Where's the hordes of crowds who bought and carry it around?
BTW AI, have you thought about doing some investigative journalism on these fantastical claims by Samsung/Google? I work at a major airport in Florida and when running a simple network scan on the free Wi-Fi service, it invariably shows about 90% connections from Apple devices vice anything else. Where are all these Android phones hiding?
This seems like a fun game people are playing. Samsung sold double the number of phones than the iPhone. Never mind the actual disparity in the number of models (3 iPhones vs. a s**t-load of Samsung phones).
What other comparisons are they going to do next? The number of hatchbacks have outsold the number of Rolls Royces this quarter?
Dozens of models of smart phones outselling 3 phones is not newsworthy. 2 tablets outselling dozens of other tablet models is.