Report: Samsung and Apple dominate Q4 with 51 percent of global smartphone market

Jordan Kahn

IDC-Q4-2012-shipments

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Q4 2012 estimates from Strategy Analytics

While Samsung has conveniently left specific smartphone sales numbers out of its Q4 earnings release yesterday (as usual), today we get a look at the latest estimates for the quarter coming from research firms Strategy Analytics and IDC.

We know that Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones during the quarter, and today both research firms put Samsung just over 63 million units for Q4 2012. That means Samsung was able to capture 29 percent of the market last quarter (up from 36.2 million units and 22.5-percent of the market in the year ago quarter). Apple is of course a close second among the top five smartphone vendors with 21.8-percent—down slightly from the 23 percent it held in the same quarter last year. In Q4 2011, Apple and Samsung were neck and neck at about 23 percent of the market each.

The increasing market share for Apple, and especially Samsung, over the past year comes at the expense of Nokia. It experienced a drop from 16 percent to 5 percent of the market during the past year.  Read more

HTC’s fourth-quarter earnings disappoint as smartphone competition heats up

9to5 Staff


Source: HTC

HTC posted unaudited consolidated results for the fourth quarter of 2011 this morning. The numbers do not look good for Asia’s second-largest handset maker as net income fell 26 percent annually to $11 billion in New Taiwan currency, or approximately $364 million USD – its first quarterly profit decline in two years. Revenue for the quarter was NT$101,419 million, a 2.49 percent annual decline.

Unaudited operating income reached NT$12.98 billion, but net income after tax was NT$11.02 billion, which is slightly behind the NT$11.6 billion expected by 11 analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Shares fell 4.2 percent to a three-week low of NT$462 in Taipei trading as Citigroup cut both the 2012 and 2013 earnings estimates for the company by 19 percent each. Citigroup explained its decision with the expected market share losses to Apple and Samsung. Surely, the writing has been on the wall for HTC for some time (here and here). More information and another chart are featured right after the break.

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As iPad 2 production winds down, 7-inch panels see sales boost

Jake Smith

As the production of the iPad 2 winds down, 7-inch panels are seeing a sales boost, reported trade publication DigiTimes. The sales boost of 7-inch panels is so high that they have passed the 9.7-inch panels for the first time in November. The 7-inch panels power popular tablets like Amazon’s Kindle Fire that is selling like crazy and Barnes and Noble’s Nook. They are both a very cheap buy for consumers this holiday season.

Earlier in the week, DigiTimes also reported that sources told them Apple was going to begin the production of a 7-inch tablet in the second quarter next year, for release in the fourth quarter. We doubt the 7-inch sales boost is due to any Apple orders just yet, even if the report is true. The 9.7-inch panel sales will most likely go up has Apple prepares for the launch of the iPad 3 that is rumored to hit in the Spring.