Nokia has, for long, enjoyed the position of being the world’s largest handset vendor, even when its influence has gradually eroded in the West. However, Samsung has been making strides to bridge the gap and take the crown and though in terms of profitability, Apple still beats Samsung by a huge margin, Samsung was able to sell more mobile sets in the last quarter than any other company in the world, even Nokia.
This has been revealed through a research by Strategy Analytics. According to the research, Samsung was able to capture a solid 25% of the global handset market during the last quarter, and that is a big achievement indeed.
Samsung was able to sell a whooping 93.5 million handsets during the first quarter of 2012, which is a significant improvement over one year ago when Samsung sold 68.9 million units during the first quarter of 2011. Nokia, on the other hand, has slid down to the second position with 82.7 million handsets sold during this quarter, Samsung having gained substantially.
Apple is way down when it comes to number of sets sold, bagging a mere 35.1 million sold units, and yet probably bagging more profit than both Samsung and Nokia.
According to the Associate Director at Strategy Analytics, ‘As volumes contracted in key developed markets like Western Europe and North America, global handset shipments grew just 3 percent annually to reach 368.0 million units in Q1 2012. Samsung was the star performer, shipping 93.5 million handsets worldwide and capturing a record 25 percent marketshare. Five years after it captured the number-two spot from Motorola, Samsung has finally become the world’s largest handset vendor in volume terms.’
And while the world is speculating that Apple’s bubble may burst soon, Samsung seems to have been safe from all criticisms and is striding forward very ambitiously. While it does remain to be seen that which of the two, if at all, eventually loses in the long run, Samsung seems all set to put up a worthy fight in the global handset arena.
