The launch of the iPhone 5 and the declining popularity of non-smartphones have made Apple the biggest seller of phones in the US for the first time, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Friday.
The firm estimates that Apple shipped 17.7 million iPhones of all kinds to US buyers in the October-to-December period, meaning it accounted for one in three new phones.
Samsung Electronics of Korea was close behind, shipping 16.8 million phones, including non-smart ones. Samsung has been the largest seller of phones to the US market since 2008, Strategy Analytics said.
Photo: Bloomberg
NPD Group, another research firm, found that Samsung phones still outsold the iPhone in the quarter, by 31 percent to 29 percent.
It tracks retails sales, while Strategy Analytics tracks shipments, so the numbers are not directly comparable.
Worldwide, it is clear that Samsung is still the biggest phone vendor with 23 percent of the market, according to a third research firm, IDC. Apple is No. 3, with 9.9 percent of the market. In between sits Nokia with 17.9 percent.
Samsung beats Apple globally even when only smartphones are considered. It shipped 63.7 million units worldwide versus Apple’s 47.8 million.
IPhones are more expensive than most Samsung smartphones. They are well within reach for US buyers, but not for buyers in the developing world, where cheaper phones running Google Inc’s Android operating system dominate.
In the US, iPhone sales are usually very strong in the first few months after a new model is released. They then taper off. That means Samsung could regain the cellphone-seller crown as early as this quarter, as measured by Strategy Analytics.
NPD said the iPhone 5 was the single most popular phone in the US in the holiday quarter. The Samsung Galaxy S III was No. 2, followed by the older iPhone models, the 4S and 4.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last