Samsung overtakes Apple as top 'smart connected device' vendor in 2012
Fresh data from IDC shows that Samsung surpassed Apple in collective PC, portable PC, tablet and smartphone shipments for 2012, with the Korean outfit moving 250 million devices over the 12 month period.
Overall, the segment, which IDC calls "smart connected devices," reached shipments of 367.7 million units in the last quarter of 2012, up 28.3 percent from one year ago. For the entire year, the firm's Worldwide Quarterly Smart Connected Device Tracker saw manufacturers ship a staggering 1.2 billion devices, a 29.1 percent uptick from 2011.
Driving the shift toward the so-called smart connected devices were Apple and Samsung, which combined took a 41.3 percent share of the market in the December quarter. While Apple was the previous number one vendor, taking a large portion of smartphone sales and being largely uncontested in the tablet arena, Samsung edged out the Cupertino, Calif., company by a little over 3 million shipped units for the last quarter of 2012.
Samsung took 21.2 percent of the smart connected device market on shipments of 77.9 million, up 86 percent from the year ago quarter. By comparison, Apple's marketshare grew by 29.7 percent over the same period to hit 20.3 percent of the market on shipments of 74.8 million units.
"The fourth quarter market share numbers showed a fairly dramatic resurgence for Apple," said Bob O'Donnell, IDC vice president of the Clients and Displays program. "After falling well behind Samsung early in 2012, Apple came roaring back in final quarter of the year thanks to its latest hits ? the iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini ? and reduced the market share gap to less than a single percentage point. The question moving forward will be whether or not Apple can maintain its hit parade against the juggernaut of Samsung."
Coming in a distant third was Lenovo, which managed to net 6.6 percent of the market after shipping 24.3 million devices, a year-over-year change of 47.2 percent. HP and Sony rounded out the top five with unit shipments of 15.1 million and 11.1 million, representing 4.1 percent and 3 percent of the market, respectively.
For the year, Samsung shipped 250 million units, representing a 119.3 percent year-to-year increase that was fueled in large part by the company's popular smartphone lineup. The iPad's dominance helped Apple stay close in overall numbers as the tablet market enjoyed a growth rate of 78.4 percent, the highest of any smart connected device.
The metrics tell only half the story, however, as shipment values went unreported. In December, IDC found that for the third quarter of 2012, Samsung lead in device volumes, but Apple's high-value products raked in the most cash. At the time, Apple trailed Samsung in quarterly market share by 6.7 percent, compared to the last quarter's 1.9 percent gap.
Overall, the segment, which IDC calls "smart connected devices," reached shipments of 367.7 million units in the last quarter of 2012, up 28.3 percent from one year ago. For the entire year, the firm's Worldwide Quarterly Smart Connected Device Tracker saw manufacturers ship a staggering 1.2 billion devices, a 29.1 percent uptick from 2011.
Chart: Worldwide Smart Connected Device Market Share by Product Category, 2010-2012Description: IDC's Smart Connected Device Tracker looks at a holistic view of PCs, tablets, and smartphone, to help further analyze the shifting trends between product categories. The research program covers over 50 countries in detail, and provides quarter market sizing, vendor analysis, and forecasting across all product groups in a combined view. For further information contact Kathy Nagamine at [email protected].Tags: Author: IDCcharts powered by iCharts
Driving the shift toward the so-called smart connected devices were Apple and Samsung, which combined took a 41.3 percent share of the market in the December quarter. While Apple was the previous number one vendor, taking a large portion of smartphone sales and being largely uncontested in the tablet arena, Samsung edged out the Cupertino, Calif., company by a little over 3 million shipped units for the last quarter of 2012.
Samsung took 21.2 percent of the smart connected device market on shipments of 77.9 million, up 86 percent from the year ago quarter. By comparison, Apple's marketshare grew by 29.7 percent over the same period to hit 20.3 percent of the market on shipments of 74.8 million units.
"The fourth quarter market share numbers showed a fairly dramatic resurgence for Apple," said Bob O'Donnell, IDC vice president of the Clients and Displays program. "After falling well behind Samsung early in 2012, Apple came roaring back in final quarter of the year thanks to its latest hits ? the iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini ? and reduced the market share gap to less than a single percentage point. The question moving forward will be whether or not Apple can maintain its hit parade against the juggernaut of Samsung."
Coming in a distant third was Lenovo, which managed to net 6.6 percent of the market after shipping 24.3 million devices, a year-over-year change of 47.2 percent. HP and Sony rounded out the top five with unit shipments of 15.1 million and 11.1 million, representing 4.1 percent and 3 percent of the market, respectively.
For the year, Samsung shipped 250 million units, representing a 119.3 percent year-to-year increase that was fueled in large part by the company's popular smartphone lineup. The iPad's dominance helped Apple stay close in overall numbers as the tablet market enjoyed a growth rate of 78.4 percent, the highest of any smart connected device.
The metrics tell only half the story, however, as shipment values went unreported. In December, IDC found that for the third quarter of 2012, Samsung lead in device volumes, but Apple's high-value products raked in the most cash. At the time, Apple trailed Samsung in quarterly market share by 6.7 percent, compared to the last quarter's 1.9 percent gap.
Comments
(Of course, we'll get the usual whining that Android isn't used on feature phones - even though I provided over half a dozen examples with just a few minutes searching last time the question came up).
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
"The question moving forward will be whether or not Apple can maintain its hit parade against the juggernaut of Samsung."
Conversely whether Samsung can maintain it's hit parade of high end devices against the juggernaut of Apple and make a decent return on the low end devices which form the majority of their sales, just ask Nokia where that road leads.
But what the hey, the author of the report had to throw in this fashionable statement denigrating Apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
(Of course, we'll get the usual whining that Android isn't used on feature phones - even though I provided over half a dozen examples with just a few minutes searching last time the question came up).
Technically any Android phone is a "smartphone" just like the Symbian phones they are replacing, the devil in the detail is whether they are being used as such.
Going on usage studies, a lot of them aren't.
shipped vs activation
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Unfortunately, they never define 'smart connected devices'.
IDC's website defined the devices as "Desktop PCs, portable PCs, tablets, and smartphones". That was even mentioned in the first sentence of the thread article.
Quote:
If Samsung shipped 78 M of these devices, they're including everything that connects to the Internet-including feature phones.
After looking up shipments for 4Q 2012, we easily calculate that 78 million meant ~64 million smartphones plus ~ 14 million of the other connected devices... not much.
If IDC had included feature phones, Samsung's total would've been closer to 125 million.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KDarling
If IDC had included feature phones, Samsung's total would've been closer to 125 million.
So tell us about these 47 million "feature phones", what OS are they running?
Perhaps you are confused with dumb phones, such as this.
Apple has never even tried to be #1 in market share, and when you think about it, it's pretty incredible that Apple sells as much as they do, since their products are not priced at bargain basement prices, like almost everybody else.
It's not hard to design Android phones, anybody with minimal talent could probably come up with a top selling Android phone design in five minutes. Just make the screen bigger than whatever is already out there, that's step number one. Don't worry if it's too big to hold or to use, or if the device won't fit in any normal person's pocket, just do it, don't sweat it. You also don't have to worry about the OS, since that is free, and provided by Google. When you choose your other parts, remember, numbers are the most important thing, and not the overall performance of your device, just go with whatever chips have big sounding numbers that will impress Fandroids who know nothing about specs and very little about tech in general.
As for the hardware design, most phones now are just a display that you hold in your hand, so keep it simple, take some inspiration (or a lot) from Apple, and there's your new Android phone. Have it come in both black and white of course, so that Fandroids and other jealous people will be able to emulate Apple owners, and these people can pretend that they have a brand new iPhone, and maybe they'll even be able to fool a few of their friends from a distance of at least 10 meters away.
And last but not least, price your device pretty damn cheap, remember who your customer base is. This group includes people who have recently filed for bankruptcy, people on welfare who have 13 kids, people who don't really care about tech, people who are just looking to replace their 10 year old feature phone and the most important group of all, people in "developing" countries whose yearly tech budget is less than 7 dollars.
I also take exception to the term smart connected device, as time and time again, the evidence has shown that nobody knows what the hell Fandroids are doing with their supposed "smart" devices, since they are so severely underrepresented on web stats. Something doesn't add up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Unfortunately, they never define 'smart connected devices'. If Samsung shipped 78 M of these devices, they're including everything that connects to the Internet-including feature phones.
(Of course, we'll get the usual whining that Android isn't used on feature phones - even though I provided over half a dozen examples with just a few minutes searching last time the question came up).
The first sentence in the article gives what the definition of "smart connected devices" is.
This just tells me that you fail to read the article. Not only that, you also made up your opinion even before you read the details.
I love these things. IDC and many of the other "reports" are paid PR. Pay and they'll make you look good with their numbers.
I take all these reports with a grain of salt since most companies don't release their numbers. Why is Apple one of the few companies being semi-transparent? Most others don't release their definitive numbers.
At least Nokia seems to be playing on the same disclosure field.
Samsun isn't a major player in the PC or portable PC market. Samsung isn't remotely close to Apple in tablets sales. Samsung may sell many cheap feature phones but those aren't smartphone? I question the accuracy and validity of this articles conclusions.
Are those the examples you were told they weren't running android and you wouldn't listen?
So Macbooks that never leave the desk they are placed on shouldn't be included in notebook/laptop sales?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Constable Odo
Apple's numbers, on the other hand, are pretty much perceived headed for oblivion.
Yeah, because Apple moving 151 million units in 2011 and 218 million units in 2012 clearly means that Apple is selling less, since 151 million is greater than 218 million. At this horrific rate of decline, I fully expect Apple to only ship 2 million units in 2013.
The fact is that Apple is growing and selling significantly more every year. Samsung sells more junk and makes less money, hurry up, somebody give them a medal.
Shipments
Returns
Warehousing
Apple leads in a different 3:
Unit sales
Actual customer usage
Profits
Of course, this is all educated guesswork since Apple reports very little data and Samsung reports even less.
For all we know those devices are sitting in BestBuy's warehouses unsold.
I can't believe how oblivious some people seem to be when you follow the money.
AT&T and Verizon push Android phones because they can make more money on it
BestBuy and third party stores also push Android because they can make more money on it, no matter what BS tell the customer. This has been going on ever since mobile phones went digital. The third party stores push whatever makes more short term money to them, even if the product is total garbage.
Here's why I won't buy an Android device
- Java/Dalvik (and the lawsuits)
- Fragmentation
- No updates from carriers or manufacturers*
*This is more important. We told people to stop using MSIE because of poor updating practices, Android's become the next MSIE of smartphones.
Meanwhile Apple supports their devices even when they no longer sell them. The average apple device lasts well past the point of supporting it (how many people still have PPC Mac's in their basement?) Very few PC's do that. So for this reason Apple has synonymous with quality.
Meanwhile HP is synonymous with extremely poor build quality, the average device barely lasts longer than it's warranty period. What about Samsung? I can tell you from experience that their Cell phone build quality has always been poor, and they have a perception of being poor (with only LG being worse) when it comes to cheap phones. Call AT&T or Verizon and speak with the Warranty Exchange department and just casually ask which devices get exchanged the most often. It often correlates with whichever device is cheapest.
In their most recent financial call, Apple said they sold more than 75 million iOS devices and 4.1 million Macs. So yes, IDC has left out the iPod touch, which would put Apple ahead.
Investors feel greedy about Samsung.
Only changes in market share, earnings per share, or truly wild gossip can change that.
"Smart connected device" is so not a real category.