

Apple starts 2014 with 41.6% US smartphone share, Samsung at 26.7%; BlackBery... - kumartech
http://www.freshtechapps.com/comscore-apple-starts-2014-with-41-6-us-smartphone-share-samsung-at-26-7-blackberry-falls-below-windows-phone/
Apple has continued its dominance in the start of 2014 being as the top smartphone as of first month of this year with 41.6 percent share.
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hawkharris
After transitioning from an iPhone to a (Samsung) Android, the iPhone screen
seems so small that it's like a toy. My friends who have switched had the same
experience.

I don't want to start an iOS-Android flame war because iPhones are great in
many ways and both sets of devices have their pros / cons. But IMHO Apple
should continue to invest in bigger and better displays if it expects to
compete effectively with Samsung.

~~~
adt2bt
This is an interesting opinion to me. My background:

I had a "dumb phone" until Sept. 2012 when I bought myself an iPhone 5 as my
first smartphone. I'm a large guy (6'4") and have been more than pleased with
the size. It fits in my pocket perfectly; I can use one hand to do everything;
I don't have any trouble with the display at all.

However, I've noticed this general trend towards bigger phones as the future.
In my mind, I always thought the larger the phone, the more the hassle.
Phablets look utterly ridiculous. In your opinion, what are the benefits to a
larger phone? Do you game? Is text larger/easier to read? I am genuinely
interested.

As another note: I have my iPhone in a case. It's not an Otter Box or
anything, but when I take it out of the case occasionally it feels
ridiculously lightweight and small. After a few minutes/hours, the feeling
normalizes and then suddenly the case, which was perfectly fine just a few
hours ago, feels quite cumbersome. Could this be a factor in your perception?

~~~
dba7dba
Larger percentage of people in Europe/Asia commute via public transportation,
meaning they have more than an hour a working day where they can't do much
else other than read something.

With smartphones people started reading/browsing/watching/gaming. And of
course for these, bigger phone is more attractive.

They couldn't care less what they look like as long as they get the
functionality they want out of the phones.

~~~
adt2bt
I can see that use case clearly now. I, too, commute with public
transportation and quickly started bringing actual books, and actually just
recently bought a Kindle Fire for the commute. It's wonderful.

Honestly (unrelated to screen size), I don't think I'll ever want to go back
to paying money for a car to haul my own ass to work every day. I realized the
other day that if I get a car that costs me $500/mo. for 72 months and commute
to work on average 21 days a month, I'm spending $24 per round trip. Have the
car for 15 years? Still $8/trip, not to mention maintenance, gas, parking and
all of the other hassles. Sorry for the ramble, this is something I just
realized after moving to a city in the States and realizing how freaking
awesome public transportation is!

~~~
dba7dba
Haha, awesome that you actually crunched the numbers.

One reason the poor in US have EXTRA hard time getting out of poverty IMO is
the requirement of a private car. If a poor American happens to lose use of a
car (breakdown, gas price, etc), he/she immediately starts having hard time
just getting to work. They could, but it takes 1-2 hr each way. The same
commute would take half that time with a private car.

And don't forget they have to pick up kids, go to medical care, grocery shop,
etc.

In other countries with well connected/cheap public transportation, no such
barrier exists.

------
dave1010uk
Wow, I never knew how different the US was to the rest of the world with
smartphone market share. Gartner says [0] that Apple has just 12% worldwide,
whereas Samsung has 32%. Android as a whole is at an incredible 82%.

[0]
[http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2623415](http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2623415)

~~~
samstave
Welcome to the world of propaganda.

~~~
blumkvist
>Welcome to the world of cheap (hidden cost) iphones.

FTFY.

~~~
baddox
And welcome to the world of very high median income.

------
luka-birsa
It's really hard to understand why somebody would over report Apple share. I
guess it's some kind of Apple fanship. Anyways, these are the real numbers
(World wide):

    
    
      Rank . Brand . . . . 2013 units . . Share . . 2012 units . . Share . . 2011 units . . Share
    
      1 (1)  . Samsung  . 311.4 M . . . .31.5% . . 215.0 M . . . 30.8% . . . 90.9 M . . . 18.7% 
      2 (2)  . Apple  . . . . 153.4 M . . . .15.5% . . 135.8 M . . . 19.5% . . . 93.1 M . . . 19.1%
      3 (5)  . Huawei  . . . . 52.0 M . . . . 5.3% . . 32.0 M . . . . 4.6% . . . 20.0 M . . . . 4.1%
      4 (9)  . LG  . . . . . . . 47.6M . . . . .4.8% . . 26.5 M . . . . 3.8% . . . 23.3 M . . . . 4.8%
      5 (10) . Lenovo *. . . 46.2 M . . . . 4.7% . . 24.9 M . . . . 3.6% . . . - - - . . . . . . . - - 
      6 (8) . . ZTE . . . . . .  40.0 M . . . . 4.0% . . 30.0 M . . . . 4.3%  . . 12.0 M . . . . 2.5%
      7 (6)  . Sony . . . . . . 38.4 M . . . . 3.9% . . 31.9 M . . . . 4.6% . .  26.8 M . . .   5.5%
      8 (-) . . Coolpad . . . 35.3 M . . . . 3.6% . . - - - - . . . . . . - - . . . . - - - - . . .  . . . - - 
      9 (3)  . Nokia . . . . .  30.5 M . . . . 3.1% . . 35.0 M . . . . 5.0%  . . 77.3 M . . . 15.9%
      10 (7) . HTC  . . . . . . 26.6 M . . . . 2.7% . . 31.5 M . . . . 4.5% . . 44.6 M . . .   9.2%
      Other . . . . . . . . . . 182.9 M . . . 18.5%
      TOTAL . . . . . . . . . 990.0 M . . . . . . . . . . 697.7 M  . . . . . . . . . 486.0 M
      * Note: Lenovo has purchased the Motorola business from Google. When Motorola smartphone sales are added to Lenovo, the total number is about 60 million in 2013 and 6% market share which makes Lenovo instantly the 3rd largest smartphone maker when the Motorola sale has been completed
      Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2014
      This data may be freely used and repeated
    

[http://communities-
dominate.blogs.com/brands/2014/02/final-2...](http://communities-
dominate.blogs.com/brands/2014/02/final-2013-smartphone-market-share-numbers-
full-year-and-quarterly-q4-data-by-top-10-brands-plus-os-.html)

~~~
dba7dba
And one should remember Apple spends big chunk of $ for Samsung made
components. Same with others, although not to degree of Apple.

Btw, man look at Nokia. WHAT happened???

~~~
luka-birsa
Long and complex look at how Steven Elop single handendly brought down the
Nokia empire: [http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/09/the-
ful...](http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/09/the-full-story-
of-nokia-and-microsoft-how-we-got-here-and-why-microsoft-will-fail-with-nokia-
handset.html)

And to think that people were cheering for his "burning-the-ships" memo and
his jump to MS.

------
techsupporter
I just wish phone manufacturers (other than the Samsung Galaxy) line would
make phones with removable batteries. Having <20 hours of usage is annoying
since outlets are a scarce resource in my workplace and I don't want to
accidentally leave the thing sitting on the charging cable when I leave.

I commute by bus roughly 45-60 minutes each way, including walking time. A
couple of spots have poor signal coverage so the phone works harder, plus I
have the screen on most of the trip. Having the ability to buy larger
batteries and/or more of them is a mandatory feature for my devices so I'm
pretty much limited to the Galaxy series and my Lumia 520.

~~~
simonh
For the iPhone an external battery case fixes that, but I don't know if those
are available for other phones.

~~~
dba7dba
Iphone external battery case is 2-3 times more expensive than a replaceable
battery of a galaxy phone. Yes another reason you end up spending far more
when you get an iphone imo (proprietary charger, battery case, phone price...)

~~~
jquery
What you save on money with Android, you gain in headaches. You get a
throwaway device that the manufacturer drops serious support for a few months
later. Instead of your phone being the core of the company's business line,
it's something to be released to fanfare and then forgotten after the initial
burst of sales. Meanwhile bugs and issues with Apple products are treated
seriously for years after the initial launch of the hardware.

This disposable attitude trickles all the way down to the customer support
teams. With my Note II there was an issue with the stylus which I eventually
gave up trying to get fixed because Samsung was giving me the run-around for
weeks. In comparison, when the volume control broke on my first iPhone after a
_year_ , Apple replaced the entire phone at no cost. After getting tired of
Samsung's deflection, I ditched my Note II and bought a new iPhone.

You get what you pay for.

------
codr
Marketshare is one thing.. but the more interesting number is the percentage
of dollars spent by consumers on each platform.

(I believe Apple also takes the crown there, by an even longer shot)

~~~
adventured
Do you have the latest (reliable) numbers on that? I know it was true two
years ago, but Android is now roughly seven times larger globally than iOS.
Hard to believe international users are spending so little.

~~~
vidarh
Keep in mind that Android stretches much further into the low end. You can
pick up an Android phone for <$40 some places. For some people it's a feature
phone on steroids.

------
frigg
Remember that this is only in the US. iOS (and Apple in general) is far less
popular in Europe and pretty much everywhere else.

------
samstave
I have an iphone 4 on Sprint with IOS7 -- I am about to become homicidal on
whomever approved this abhorrent combo of clusterfuck.

Ive better watch his back!

