Apple Surpasses Samsung as World’s Largest Smartphone Manufacturer

Apple has surpassed Samsung as the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, marking the first time that Apple has held the top spot since 2011. In the last quarter of 2014, Apple sold 74.8 million and Samsung sold a slightly less 73 million phones.

While the difference is highly negligible, it’s a significant shift when you consider the range of smartphones Apple sells compared to that of Samsung. While Samsung produces cheap phones, mid-range phones and premium phones, Apple largely specialises in so-called premium devices.

“With Apple dominating the premium phone market and the Chinese vendors increasingly offering quality hardware at lower prices, it is through a solid ecosystem of apps, content and services unique to Samsung devices that Samsung can secure more loyalty and longer-term differentiation at the high end of the market,” Roberta Cozza, at Gartner. 

Apple’s ability to sell such ‘high end’ products at such volume has been described as unprecedented; with its strong ecosystem and extraordinary success in China being targeted as the main reasons for their success. Apple’s decision to produce phones with larger displays is also a big factor, as it appears consumers had been longing to have the iOS experience on a larger screen.

Will Samsung be able to catch up with the new S6 and S6 Edge? The phones garnered a positive reaction from those who were at their unveiling in Barcelona. Both devices have a full metal case, leading to a more pleasing design compared to their previous plastic-y phones. That design has been a point of contention too – a number have called out their similarities to the iPhone 6.

.@samsung You forgot the fucking Lightning port. Assholes. #TheNextGalaxy pic.twitter.com/L07heoHYFD

— not Jony Fucking Ive (@JonyIveParody) March 1, 2015

Source: MacRumors