From PC World: A successful iPhone 6 launch in the U.S. helped Apple increase its share of the smartphone market in the third quarter, but nemesis Samsung Electronics struggled, with upstart Chinese manufacturers nipping at its heels and growing ever stronger.
Thanks to record sales in emerging markets and the popularity of Apple’s new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, overall smartphones sales to end users grew 20.3 percent to reach 301 million units during the third quarter, market research company Gartner said in its “Market Share: Devices, All Countries, 3Q14 Update” report on Monday.
Samsung’s struggles continued unabated in the quarter. While the overall market grew, Samsung’s sales dropped by about 9 percent to 73.2 million units. That was enough for a 24.4 percent market share, which still makes it the largest vendor by a large margin.
Samsung’s product development team became too cautious, and paid a high price with the Galaxy S5, which failed to catch on with buyers. It is now under pressure to develop cooler products across its whole portfolio. The launch of the Galaxy Note 4 Edge with its curved screen has already showed that Samsung is willing to break new ground in the high-end segment. And the recent launch of the Galaxy A3, which has a metal unibody, shows the company is willing to use premium materials even on its lower-priced devices to claw back market share.
View: Article @ Source Site
