Smarty Pants??

Who Is Who in Smartphone Sector

According to the recent statistics, Apple’s overly hyped iPhone is slowly dying and may soon fall behind Microsoft. Indeed, the excessive growth which has characterized Apple sales in the smartphone sector has recently slowed and the company now has only 19% of the market. Some industry observers put this market share figure in perspective and pointed out that the company is currently one point ahead of the much maligned Microsoft.

In the meanwhile, the winner now is Android, dominating the mobile market and making up almost 60% of those shipments. However, Microsoft has patent which Android uses, and therefore makes $8 out of each phone sold, so it is winning in this situation as well.

As for the top manufacture, the first place is taken by Samsung, which grew its volume by 64% annually. Apple takes the second place and is followed by Huawei, LG and ZTE. However, those make up less than 5% of the market share.

The industry experts wonder how Apple not only dropped the ball, but gift wrapped it and gave it to its rivals. One answer is that this wouldn’t be happening if Steve Jobs were alive, but saner appeals suggest that the company simply fears to modify Jobs’ vision. Some experts claim that the iPhone user interface is already 6 years old and needs an urgent refresh. In addition, Apple keeps ignoring the trend for larger displays in premium smartphones.

In the meanwhile, Apple can’t claim that the market is saturated, as global shipments for notebooks, tablets and smartphones were over 308 million in the first quarter of the current year, which represents 37% growth from the same quarter of 2012. The statistics shows that tablets are the fastest growing among the three markets, growing 106% year-over-year to 41.9 million units. Here Apple is still the leader, holding a 46% market share, but it has lost the level of dominance it once enjoyed.