It looks like the seemingly now-eternal rivalry between Apple and Samsung continues, with the firm from Cupertino clearly gaining the upper hand this time around. Market research firm Gartner has stepped forward, claiming that Apple has overtaken Samsung to be the top smartphone vendor in the world for the fourth quarter of 2014. This would most probably mean that Apple fans will have yet another item to place on their bragging rights list whenever they meet up with a hardcore Samsung supporter.
In this report, Apple managed to sell a grand total of 74.83 million smartphones in Q4 2014, as opposed to the 73.03 million units that were sold by Samsung in the corresponding quarter. The report mentioned that “Apple’s strong ecosystem and its new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus drove strong replacements within the iOS base,” also stating that the new iPhones with larger sized screens would also prove to be a lure too strong to resist by those who want an Android alternative.
Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, shared, “Samsung’s performance in the smartphone market deteriorated further in the fourth quarter of 2014, when it lost nearly 10 percentage points in market share. Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013. This downward trend shows that Samsung’s share of profitable premium smartphone users has come under significant pressure.”
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