With rising competition from the likes of Samsung, many speculate Apple is losing its grip on the smartphone market which is evident by Apple’s miserable stock tank in recent months. It does remain to be seen in the long run if Apple can stay ahead, but for now, Apple did win a quarterly battle against Samsung. Both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S had more shipments in Q4 2012 than the Samsung Galaxy S III.
This comes from a report from Strategy Analytics which uses what it calls its Handset Country Share Tracker service to track shipments of smartphones globally. In the last quarter of 2012 by these measurements, Apple shipped 27.4 million iPhone 5 units, making it the best-selling smartphone of the quarter. The second highest selling was the iPhone 4S of 2011, which had 17.4 million shipments, which is a slight bump from the previous quarter presumably due to the holiday season.
Then in third place comes the Samsung Galaxy S III with 15.4 million shipments. That’s actually down from the previous quarter’s shipments of 18 million, meaning Apple dominated the holiday wish lists. All other smartphone shipments totaled up to 156.8 million for a grand total of 217 million in Q4 2012.
Converting into percentages we find that iPhone 5 shipments claimed 12.6 percent market share, iPhone 4S claimed 8 percent, and Galaxy S III claimed 7.1. Over 1 in 5 smartphones shipped during Q4 was an iPhone.
Of course the tables will turn later this year with the Apple iPhone 5S and Samsung Galaxy S IV both rumored for release in 2013.