ABI Research, a market intelligence firm, says in a new report that both Apple and Samsung have been able to fend off low cost smartphone vendors for the second continuous quarter. It is no secret that the global smartphone market is being flooded with low cost smartphones, most of which run on Android. Samsung leads in global smartphone shipments, moving some 214 million units in the second quarter of 2013. Despite the fact that many believe the premium smartphone tier has been saturated, both Samsung and Apple were able to deliver results better than what ABI had expected.
The report claims that 2013’s second half will be “defined by fierce competition” between vendors who are moving towards the mid-range market with their aggressively priced devices. On the other hand, there are top tier vendors that are also moving towards the mid-range market. Samsung already has quite a lot of mid-range smartphones on offer, whereas Apple is reportedly launching its own budget offering called iPhone Lite just to get a footing in this particular market. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, big companies like Apple and Samsung will be able to spending more on promoting their mid-range devices, but their competitors in that market are likely to give a tough time by aggressively pricing their productions.