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[aktrazer]

Greetings, readers!

I posted a little while ago about the Samsung Galaxy S3 becoming the top-selling smartphone, surpassing the iPhone. Well, the Q4 earnings statement is out and, lo and behold, Samsung is rocking and rolling. The gap between Samsung and Apple seems to be growing as Samsung takes more and more of the market share.

Units Sold:
While Samsung hasn't released a device-specific breakdown of the phones sold, they are saying they sold approximately 60 million units, compared to Apple's number of 47.2 million. It seems the Galaxy Series of phones (S2, S3 and Note2) have really established a fan following and track record of performance and quality.

The market share numbers do the speaking. Samsung now owns between 29% and 33% of the market, while Apple has fallen to around 21-22%. (These numbers are estimates from market research analysts so there is a little wiggle room).

Dollars and Cents:
Here's the actual financial breakdown:

Samsung's Q4 2012 profit is hovering around $6.6 billion, compared to last year's number of $3.72 billion. Break out the calculator, yes, that's a 76% increase year-to-year.

Apple's Q4 2012 profit is at $13.1 billion, compared to, well, the same number as last year. In fact, they only beat their year-to-year total by $14 million.


In my opinion, with the economy in shambles as it still is, consumers are reaching for more bang for their buck. Samsung phones cost less when compared to their Apple counterparts and continue to dominate the smartphone market in terms of market share. I think the actual dollars in sales are grossly inflated due to Apple's extremely high profit margin due to their much higher prices. Apple also has their following that will simply buy the newest phone, no matter what.

It's worth noting that Apple's stock (AAPL) has continued to slip to the 450/share mark, down from the ~500/share mark that it was at in my previous article:

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With Samsung posting record profits and Apple's market share slipping away slowly, what do you think? Are we watching the fall of Apple devices' mainstream appeal? Is this just a hiccup, does Samsung have the potential to keep Apple on a leash?

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[jimboslice]

I think people are finally starting to see life outside of Apple. They're losing their foothold in the industry, fast. I saw it first hand.

When I first started working for VZW, I seriously had customers that had no idea Android or Windows Mobile existed because Apple established itself as a strong contender a while back.

I've had customers that thought Apple was the best simply because, and I quote, "It's Apple, right?"

But now, I feel most people are finally starting to do research on products before they buy. the biggest feature that got soo many converts in my store was NFC. This tech is what got my customers the most excited when shopping for a phone. I had a client that picked the GS3 over the I5, even though all of her friends had I5's, just so she could have a feature they didn't yet.

The best days I had while working there were people coming in to trade in their iphones for the GS3, Note 2, or RAZR HD.


Shortly before I left the company, a lot of people would come in KNOWING that Apple's tablets and phones are generally inferior to other high end devices on the market.

And this all happened in a course of about 4 months.