Samsung, Apple still dominate smartphones, but their shares slip

From InfoWorld: Samsung and Apple, in the second quarter, sunk to their lowest shares of the global smartphone market in recent years as Chinese smartphone vendors came on strong, market research firm IDC said Tuesday.

"Samsung and Apple are both seeing a lot of pressure from alternative vendors working their way up the ladder," said IDC analyst Ryan Reith in an interview.

Samsung and Apple still dominate the smartphone market, but are being crowded out by a host of smaller vendors, mostly from China. They include Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, Coolpad, ZTE, TCL and OPPO, Reith said.

In the past few years, Samsung, has taken about 30 percent of the smartphone market each quarter putting it squarely in first place. In fact, Samsung reached 32.3 percent in the second quarter of 2013. In the just-finished second quarter, however, Samsung's share dropped to 25.2 percent, with 74.3 million smartphones shipped, still more than double that of second-place Apple, IDC said. That 25.2 percent is the lowest share for Samsung since the fourth quarter of 2011, Reith said.

Apple, in second place, has held about 18 percent of the market each quarter in recent years but lately has seen steady declines, dropping to 11.9 percent market share in the second quarter of 2014, down from 13 percent in the same period last year. For the just-passed second quarter, Apple shipped 35.1 million smartphones. Apple's 11.9 percent market share is its lowest since the first quarter of 2009, Reith said.

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