Samsung shipped more phones than Nokia, Apple, LG combined
Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 helped it win 29 percent of the mobile phone market. — (Credit: CNET) — Samsung shipped a record 120.1 million phone phones last quarter, beating Nokia, Apple, and LG combined, Strategy Analytics said on Tuesday.
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung’s shipment lead over Apple was already visible in 2011 smartphone shipment rankings and widened in 2012 quarterly smartphone estimates. The latest Strategy Analytics tally extends that competitive arc from smartphones to overall handset volume, placing Samsung ahead of Nokia, Apple and LG in aggregate.
First-order effects
- Samsung gains a scale advantage over Nokia, Apple and LG in handset shipments, strengthening its position with the channel that carries phones to buyers.
- Nokia, Apple and LG each face a market leader whose quarterly phone volume exceeds their combined total, raising the urgency of their respective product responses.
Second-order effects
- Samsung’s shipment scale gives carriers and retailers a larger Samsung device base to merchandise, while rivals must compete for comparable placement with smaller volumes.
- The Galaxy Note 3’s contribution to Samsung’s result reinforces large-screen flagship devices as an important competitive lever for Apple, LG and Nokia.
Third-order effects
- If Samsung sustains this lead, handset competition is likely to be organized less around a single incumbent such as Nokia and more around Samsung’s ability to translate smartphone momentum into broad phone-market scale.
- The result points to a more concentrated handset market in which shipment scale can compound through distribution leverage and a wider product portfolio.
The trend: Samsung is converting its earlier smartphone-shipment lead into broader handset-market scale, shifting competitive pressure onto both former leaders and premium rivals.