_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0.jpg "Apple dethrones Samsung as the largest smartphone manufacturer")
Chennai: For the first time in the past three years, Samsung lost the first position in the global smart phone market to Apple Inc in the forth quarter of 2014.
According to research firm Gartner, Apple reported its best quarter ever in the fourth quarter of 2014, which saw it sell 74.8 million units and move to the top most position in the global smartphone market enjoying 20.4 per cent market share being shipped in the October-December 2014 quarter.
Samsung, which had a 29.5 per cent share in the fourth quarter of 2013, saw its share declining to 19.9 per cent in the last quarter of the year with shipment of 73.03 million smartphones.
In 2014, sales of smartphones to end users totaled 1.2 billion units up 28.4 percent from 2013 and represented two-thirds of global mobile phone sales.
“Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013. This downward trend shows that Samsung’s share of profitable premium smartphone users has come under significant pressure,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.
