Samsung shipped twice as many smartphones as Apple sold last quarter, and passed Nokia to become the top manufacturer for handsets overall, according to two new reports.
Strategy Analytics says that Samsung shipped 50.5 million smartphones in the second quarter, while IDC puts the number at 50.2 million. Apple, on the other hand, reported selling 26 million iPhones in the last quarter.
Comparing shipments to sales isn't exactly apples to apples, but the data does suggest that demand for Samsung's phones is well ahead of Apple's right now. Strategy Analytics found that Samsung now controls 34.6% of the smartphone market, while Apple's share is 17.8%.
What's more, Samsung ended up shipping 93 million phones in total globally, boosting its share of the overall global handset market to 25.7% from 20.7% a year before. This increase in shipments, combined with Nokia's gradual decline, means that Samsung is now the top dog in the handset market.
Samsung did not report the number of smartphone or handset shipments for the latest quarter, so these numbers are still estimates. However, Samsung did post a record profit of $5.9 billion for the June quarter, which was driven by its booming smartphone sales.
The data isn't exactly comparing apples to apples here, since Samsung's numbers are shipments while Apple's numbers are sell through. However, these numbers to suggest that Apple's new product release time table may be costing it dearly. Apple traditionally released its new iPhones during the summer, but last year, it waited until the fall to release the iPhone 4s. When that phone came out, many were disappointed it wasn't a bigger leap ahead of the iPhone 4.
Business Insider's Henry Blodget argues that the most recent iPhone already looks outdated compared to the Samsung phones that have come out since, which may be causing more customers to flock to Samsung. Given that the next iPhone probably won't be released until September or October, Samsung will likely have another fiscal quarter where they can own Apple on sales.
Here is Strategy Analytics' breakdown of smartphone shipments last quarter:
