Backed by its premium branding and technology prowess, iPhone maker Apple has dislodged Samsung from its perch to take the top slot in the smartphone category during the fourth quarter of 2014, research firm Gartner said in its report on Tuesday.
The global smartphone market, where Samsung ruled the roost for the past three years, witnessed a total shipment of 1.2 billion units during 2014, up 28.4 per cent over 2013, representing two-thirds of global mobile phone sales.
Even though Samsung held on to the top slot for the entire year, Apple captured a 20.4 per cent share (74.83 million units shipped) of the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter, which saw over 367.48 million units being shipped.
According to Gartner, Samsung, which had a 24.4 per cent share in the third quarter of 2014, saw its share declining to 19.9 per cent in the last quarter of the year with shipment of 73.03 million smartphones.
Commenting on the development, Gartner Principal Research Analyst Anshul Gupta said, “Samsung’s performance in the smartphone market deteriorated further in the fourth quarter of 2014, when it lost nearly 10 percentage points in market share.”
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