By Sarfaraz
A. Khan and Gohar Yousuf
Samsung (SSNLF) looks in a better
position for long term growth than Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) due to its dominating
market share, a strategic shift towards software, its enormous project pipeline
and diverse revenue base that goes well beyond mobile devices.
One of the
leading IT research firms Gartner has released its estimates for the global
mobile phone sales during the third quarter of 2013. According to the firm, about
456 million mobile phones were sold in the previous quarter, showing a
year-over-year increase of 5.7%. Of these, a little more than 250 million were
smartphones whose sales rose 45.8% from the same quarter in 2012. Once again,
the South Korean consumer electronics behemoth Samsung (SSNLF) has retained the
title of the world’s biggest smartphone, and the world’s biggest mobile, phone
vendor (in terms of units sold).
Market
Share
In the
previous quarter, Samsung was able to extend its lead over its biggest
smartphone rival Apple (AAPL).
The Korean firm was able to maintain its market share at 32.1%, but the
increase in the size of the market translated into a 46% increase in the number
of smartphones sold to 80.36 million units. On other hand, Apple’s market share
has dropped by 2.2 percentage points to 12.1% as Apple could only manage a 23%
year-over-year increase in sales. However, if Apple had released the new
iPhones earlier, then the numbers … read full article at GuruFocus
