Samsung's Q2 smartphone shipments nearly twice those of Apple, say research firms
The smartphone market grew 32 percent year-over-year in the quarter to reach 146 million units, said Strategy Analytics — Samsung shipped nearly twice the number of smartphones as Apple during the second quarter …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second consecutive quarter the research firms have called for Samsung: the Korean vendor first overtook Apple in smartphone shipments in late 2011, and Strategy Analytics' Q2 2012 numbers extend that lead to nearly a two-to-one gap in units. The pickup is unusually broad — Reuters, IDC, Juniper Research, WSJ, CNET and others all carried the same figures within days, with Reuters pairing them with Samsung's record $5.9 billion quarterly profit.
The 32 percent year-over-year expansion of the market to 146 million units matters as much as the ranking: Samsung is capturing the growth segment of the market while Apple sells one premium device line. On the same day as these numbers, Apple confirmed its $356 million acquisition of mobile-security firm AuthenTec — a signal of where it intends to compete instead.
First-order effects
- Samsung consolidates the volume lead it took in Q4 2011, now shipping close to twice Apple's units while posting record profit — the rare combination of scale and margin in handsets.
- Apple remains the unit-volume number two despite selling essentially one model family, keeping its per-device economics intact but ceding the fast-growing mid-market entirely.
Second-order effects
- Apple's same-day AuthenTec acquisition points to a differentiation-by-feature response — biometric security and hardware integration — rather than a price or volume counterattack against Android's shipment machine.
- Component suppliers and carriers gain leverage from Samsung's scale: with roughly half the quarter's 146 million units flowing through one vendor, Samsung's negotiating position on parts and shelf space strengthens at rivals' expense.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the smartphone industry settles into a two-track structure: Android vendors competing on shipment volume across price tiers, and Apple competing on integrated hardware-software differentiation — with market-share headlines becoming a poor proxy for who captures the profit pool.
- Sustained 30-percent-plus annual growth keeps the market an expansion game rather than a zero-sum share fight for now, but every point of deceleration will convert the Samsung-Apple unit race into a direct battle for upgrade buyers.
The trend: Smartphone leadership is rotating toward high-volume Android vendors like Samsung, forcing Apple to compete on differentiation and ecosystem rather than unit share.