Archive for January 2015
Gartner reports that in calendar 2014 1.95 Bn mobile phones were shipped compared to 265M tablets and 300M PC and laptops.
Elsewhere Strategy Analytics reports that 1.283Bn smart phones were shipped in 2014 with the distribution as shown on the chart below.
Interesting to note that Samsung’s market lead has reduced with Apple matching Samsung’s 74.5M smartphones shipped in Q4.
Lenovo has moved up the market share rank with stong sales aided by their 2014 acquistion of Motorola mobiles from Google for $2.9Bn.
Apple’s improvement was driven by the launch of the greatly hyped iPhone 6 and 6Plus. These have proved very popular particularly in China USA and Europe (not to mention Australia). This also lead to Apple reporting $18Bn profit in Q4 2014 the highest of quarterly profit of any company ever reported. They also announced the production of their one billionth iOS device fittingly an iPhone 6 which they have kept at Cupertino HQ. Apple’s cash pile resulting from all this accumulated profit (all $178Bn of it) however is not kept at Cupertino or in the USA at all. It is kept safely away from the USA tax man and other tax administrations as far as possible.
Telecoms.com has the 2014 quarter by quarter shipments here.
Reporting on operating system share IDC claimed 1,300 million smartphones were shipped in 2014 with Android dominating with 1,059 million or over 81%.