The smartphone industry is set to create new records after tech companies announced their earnings results last week. Yesterday, Apple announced its financial quarter results and shook the market with recording breaking profits. Today, Samsung reported a disappointing quarterly result that hints a drop in the companies crown position as the leader in the sales of smartphones. Apparently, Apple is already on the move to take over Samsung’s position.
The South-Korea-based smartphone maker saw a 64% decline in the earnings from smartphones and other handheld devices as compared to the last year. In the October to December period, Samsung’s earnings were $1.80 billion, equivalent to 1.96 trillion won. This marked the company’s first annual decline in the last three years. Also, the result is Samsungs’ fifth decline on a quarterly basis.
On the other hand, Samsung’s rival, Apple, had announced record-breaking sales for the same period just one day ahead of it. Apple sold as many as 74.5 million iPhone in the quarter ended December. The surge in sales was mainly due to the success of its new iPhones with the bigger screens, iPhone 6 and its bigger brother, iPhone 6 Plus. These phones are popular in major markets, including China, the U.S. and Europe.
Samsung did not announce how many phones it sold in the period, but mentioned that there was a decline in sales in the Q4. Mobile’s share of the company’s working profit dropped to only 58% from the previous year’s 70%. Nevertheless, Samsung expects shipments and selling prices for its handheld units to surge in the Q1 of 2015. The anticipations from its new mid-tier models, such as the Galaxy A, is high, it said.
According to Counterpoint, a research firm, Apple beat Samsung as the leading maker of smartphones across the globe in the fourth quarter.
