Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

26% of the iPhone 4 was manufactured by Samsung:<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21525685" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/node/21525685</a><p>Samsung have for a long time been a bigger player in the smartphone market than they look from their device sales alone.

I was expecting this. Apple can't possibly match Samsung with all their smartphone price ranges, and it's only the beginning for Samsung. There are a lot more "units" to be sold in the under $150 level. That's where the biggest volume will come from.<p>I also expect them to surpass Nokia in all phone shipments, too (they already did in smartphones). But it might take a few more quarters. Nokia will transition too slowly to Windows Phone and Meltemi, and it's yet to be seen if they will even see as big success as they did in the past with Symbian. Many have already moved on from Nokia.

I'm really confused as to why some people seem to have strong feelings about this.

Single device strategy vs Devices with multiple sizes, keyboards etc.The first strategy makes good profit and the second strategy makes more revenuue. but long term, always the market share rules strategically..

These figures are a red herring, I'd like to know how the iPhone-equivalent models from Samsung/others are selling. The 3GS is available on upfront $0, but the plan cost is higher, which means it's not competitive to the much cheaper, albeit less-featured/powered models from other vendors. In essence this is apple replicating their 90%+ marketshare in computers over USD$1000.<p>As an app developer I'm more interested in how this top end pans out. I want the consumers who are willing to buy apps, and I want there to be lots of them on one kind of platform so I don't have to do the heavy lifting in making the game consistent across all handsets. I'm not making angry-birds clones that could run on minecraft redstone, so a basic level of GPU+CPU capability is needed.<p>Samsung's business model promotes the further fragmentation of Android, and I think this will be a bad thing for consumers(read: developers). We'll be back to the days of nokia making a different phone for every conceivable type of person there is, with only nokia or huge studios with the capability to make the umpteen variations required to make the game feel at least comparable across each handset.<p>If there are 80% of the market using android devices that are underpowered the only winner will be flashlight apps.

That's because Samsung has a wider view of "smartphone". They release a LOT of Bada phones which they consider to be "smart", but often only mention their Android partnership when they release their numbers.

Can anyone find Samsung's actual sales numbers? Not analysts estimates or vague percentages more. I would think if Samsung is selling as much as is claimed, they would have at least a concrete number.

... and so the pressure builds on Apple to diversify, which is what killed it last time. Really Apple needs to invent and come up with something special, but as SJ would tell you - which idea do you pick?

Apple never set out to make the most smartphones, it just kind of happened.<p>They set out to make the most money. Samsung are a fair distance from achieving that.

Once again the media is derelict in its reporting duties by equating "shipped" as "sold". They are not the same thing.

The secret of samsung is that they cater for multiple price ranges, also the use of android is proving to be a good advantage over the now dying nokia.Despite the launch of the lumia, nokia and microsoft aren't likely to win in this race.

What percentage of the profits do they take?<p>Exactly.

Well overtaking Apple is a good start, we shouldn't stop until Apple tyranny is totally wiped off the face of the Earth.

My problem is that all of these articles are missing a key piece of information: the number of devices each manufacturer has out on the market. Jumping over to Samsung's website, I count 14 Galaxy Smartphone devices currently on sale. What about Apple? They have on sale the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. How about instead of comparing absolute values of shipments, we talk about number of shipments per device?<p>But is it really a numbers game? Is it quantity over quality? It's no secret that Apple has one of the most loyal fanbases out of any other tech company. Who is clamoring over wanting every new Galaxy smartphone? Who's lining up every time they release a new product?<p>For those who want to play the numbers game, make sure to play it properly. The iPhone 4s sold 4M shipments during its first weekend. Meanwhile, it took Samsung 55 days to sell 3 million Galaxy S IIs, arguably, their most successful Smartphone yet. Now if Samsung continuously releases new versions of these Galaxy smartphones, which they are, then obviously they will be shipping more.