While opinion about unpublished numbers, such as Samsung’s, will always be divided among analysts, it’s clear that Apple’s stellar Q4 has brought its shipment numbers very close to Samsung’s. This isn’t a total surprise as Q4 is always Apple’s blow-out quarter for the iPhone, but considering Samsung operates across all price tiers, while Apple is premium-only, it’s still quite an achievement.
Premium device maker Apple was generously rewarded for its first interesting product in years with record sales of its iPhone smartphone. Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones on the final quarter of 2014 – generally by far its strongest quarter – which represented a massive 46% increase on the same quarter a year ago.
Chinese telco giant Huawei, perhaps conscious of rival Ericsson announcing its quarterlies today, has decided to unveil the 2014 performance of its Consumer Business Group, which is almost entirely comprised of mobile handsets. While total device shipments only increased by 8% over the previous year to 138 million units, smartphone shipments jumped by 45% to 75 million units.
Software giant Microsoft announced Lumia shipments of 10.5 million units in Q4 2014, which it claimed was an all-time high, although it’s not clear if this includes the Nokia era. These gains are being made at the expense of average selling price, however, with gains mostly coming from the cheaper versions.
Surging Chinese smartphone vendor Xiaomi has unveiled a couple of new flagship smartphones – the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro. While the Note branding seems more geared towards competing with Samsung’s Galaxy Note family, the main comparisons have been made with the Apple iPhone 6 Plus.
Smartphone sales data covering the three months to the end of November 2014 from Kantar show the iPhone’s iOS platform gained share in nearly all regions covered. Britain and Australia experienced especially strong iPhone growth, with Japan continuing to be the only market tracked where iPhone share is declining.
China-based TCL Communication, the holding company of affordable mobile device vendor Alcatel OneTouch, has confirmed recent reports it has snapped up the Palm brand from HP. TCL said it is to create a new US-based company, Palm Inc., which will take ownership of the brand and development of mobile devices.
Motorola has announced it is to return to China after being absent from the market since 2013 when it became a Google-owned company. This follows Chinese tech giant Lenovo’s October acquisition of the US-based mobile vendor.
Acer, Asus, LG, Lenovo and ZTE have all announced new mid- and lower-end smartphones. This flurry of new mobile devices comes just ahead of the CES event commencing in Las Vegas later today, and each of the Far Eastern device makers seemed keen to ensure their new mobiles were getting noticed early.
Having already disposed of the majority of its abortive Palm acquisition, HP has now handed over the brand. While there has been no formal announcement from either party, all the evidence points towards the Palm brand having been snapped up by TCL Alcatel, presumably to badge a range of smartphones.
Booming Chinese smartphone marker Xiaomi will bring in over a billion dollars during its current round of funding, which values the company at around $45 billion, according to a WSJ report.
Imaging company Kodak is to launch a branded smartphone and tablet range in a partnership with UK-based mobile device manufacturer Bullitt Group. The devices, which will run on the Android platform, will come pre-loaded with bespoke image capture, management and sharing features.
Humbled former smartphone giant BlackBerry has reverted back to a tried and tested design in a bid to restore some of its shattered smartphone market share. The BlackBerry Classic is positioned as the heir to relatively popular designs such as the Bold 9900.
Russian outfit Yota Devices has launched the second version of its dual-screen smartphone, while Finnish startup Circular Devices has served up a modular smartphone. Both devices have some strong differentiators but are unlikely to progress beyond niche status.
Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel reckons Apple has grabbed a bunch of smartphone sales share across a number of country markets thanks to the popularity of the redesigned iPhone 6, although the 6 Plus is nowhere near so popular.
Indian affordable smartphone maker Karbonn Mobile has announced it is launching in the UK with its Sparkle V on Friday exclusively via Amazon. As a Black Friday special offer, the device will be available for £99 for one day only, after which it will be available at £129.
Telecoms.com tracks the top 10 smartphone vendor’s quarterly shipments through a combination of their own published numbers, analyst numbers and, when neither are available, our own research and estimates. We collate them in a table to make it easy to track global smartphone trends.
After years of dramatic sales growth the global smartphone market is slowing down, according to new data from analysts CCS Insight. The firm is forecasting global smartphone sales growth of 25% in 2014, down from 40% last year and slowing further to 15% in 2015.
Samsung’s Q3 2014 pre-earnings guidance concedes the Korean giant is finding it tough to keep growing its smartphone shipments. Revealing that profits are likely to come in well below analyst expectations, Samsung pinned the blame mainly on its mobile business.
Apple announced it sold over 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones during the first weekend of sales, a new record for the company. The phones, which were released to market on Friday, are currently on sale in 10 countries with 20 more getting them on 26th September, and 115 expected in total by the end of the year.
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