New figures from Strategy Analytics show that Samsung and Apple each produced 74.5 million smartphones in the final quarter of 2014, giving each of them just under a fifth of the total smartphone market. It’s the first time the two companies have been this close with quarterly shipments since the end of 2011.
However, Samsung still led for the total year, shipping 317.2 million smartphones in 2014 - a slight drop from the previous year. Overall, 1.28 billion smartphones were shipped last year, up from 990 million in 2013.
The final quarter of 2014 saw a 31% increase year-on-year with over 380 million units shipped.
Lenovo, which now also produces Motorola handsets, was in third place for Q4 2014 with a 6.5% share of the market. Huawei was in fourth place with 6.3%.
| Smartphone shipments (millions) |
Q4 2013 |
Total 2013 |
Q4 2014 |
Total 2014 |
| Samsung |
86.0 |
319.8 |
74.5 |
317.2 |
| Apple |
51.0 |
153.4 |
74.5 |
192.7 |
| Lenovo |
18.8 |
62.1 |
24.7 |
92.7 |
| Huawei |
16.6 |
50.4 |
24.1 |
74.1 |
| Others |
117.8 |
404.3 |
182.3 |
606.8 |
| Total |
290.2 |
990.0 |
380.1 |
1283.5 |
[Strategy Analytics blog; report]