Samsung smartphones are selling briskly, there is no material difference in the numbers.
The month on month rise in sales, for the last year or so, has been spectacular. You can't just keep shipping phones at that pace without selling them, it's simply not realistic to channel stuff on that scale.
The article didn't mention anything about the difference in "shipped" vs "sold" numbers. Apple's numbers are those that have sold through to customers. So there is not enough information to tell if it's "a material difference".
The rest of the article is equally shoddy. For example:
Chinese phone maker ZTE Corp.’s cheaper handsets helped it take 4.7 percent and overtake Apple for fourth place. Global market shipments climbed 14 percent to 390 million units, according to the researcher.
Apple does not even produce feature phones, so the inclusion of Apple in that paragraph can only be construed as mischievous. It's like saying "Porsche fell to last place in the under-US$20K category".
The month on month rise in sales, for the last year or so, has been spectacular. You can't just keep shipping phones at that pace without selling them, it's simply not realistic to channel stuff on that scale.