Samsung smartphones outsell Apple by 65% in Q3

[Bateluer]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=23140

This ought to be like gasoline on a fire. 😛

The company announced a strong quarter on Thursday.

Leading the way was the company's telecommunications (phone) business, which reported selling 28 million smartphones in Q3 2011. That's four times what Samsung sold last year and it's 65 percent more smartphone units than arch-rival Apple, Inc. (AAPL) sold in the quarter.

If you needed further proof that Apple is simply trying to out litigate a competitor, this is it. Samsung's definitely cleaned up their act since the Behold and Moment days.

 

[Anubis]

trolling aside thats pretty fing impressive

 

[Red Storm]

It will be interesting to see how much Apple closes that gap once Q4 numbers are taken in (which also includes a number of GS2s and the Galaxy Nexus).

 

[Patranus]

Article misrepresents Samsung numbers. Samsung shipped 28 million smartphones.

 

[sgrinavi]

Everyone held off buying an iP4 in hopes of landing an iP5 or a cheap 4 - I bet things even out a bit in the next quarter

 

[Mopetar]

Does anyone have the actual numbers, or these reports still based on shipping estimates from Strategy Analytics. Samsung stopped releasing actual sales numbers a while ago, so there's no way to actually verify these figures. The full report requires a membership or purchase, so there's no way to tell how they arrived at that figure. Color me skeptical.

 

[Bateluer]

Does anyone have the actual numbers, or these reports still based on shipping estimates from Strategy Analytics. Samsung stopped releasing actual sales numbers a while ago, so there's no way to actually verify these figures. The full report requires a membership or purchase, so there's no way to tell how they arrived at that figure. Color me skeptical.

Keep in mind, multiple sources have pegged Samsung with massive growth, some 800% smartphone sales increase between Q3-2010 and Q3-2011. Also, that nearly every vendor reports how many units they shipped to e/retailers/merchants, not the number actually sold.

 

[manly]

Article misrepresents Samsung numbers. Samsung shipped 28 million smartphones.

to be fair that's still a huge lead unless retailers sit on 5M units of inventory at a time, worldwide?

Couple points, for Apple it's all about profits. Market share is just a means to that end. Apple holds single digit worldwide market share in PCs, and something like 1/3 of industry profits (servers obviously excluded).

Secondly, I believe Apple is expected to sell in the neighborhood of 28M iPhones this quarter. But estimates are all across the board with a floor of 25M. If Samsung achieves sequential quarterly growth, they should stay just ahead. Right now it's a game of who cannibalizes RIM's share faster. 😀

 

[alent1234]

A lot of times retailers agree to take inventory with the condition they can send it back if unsold. Wall street calls it "stuffIng the channel"


4q will tell all

 

[zerocool84]

I think we all knew that the long wait for a new iPhone would hurt Apple.

 

[Mopetar]

Keep in mind, multiple sources have pegged Samsung with massive growth, some 800% smartphone sales increase between Q3-2010 and Q3-2011. Also, that nearly every vendor reports how many units they shipped to e/retailers/merchants, not the number actually sold.

Samsung doesn't report anything, outside of revenue, which is the problem. Since I can't actually read the article and evaluate the method by which the company who made the 28 million device estimate actually came to that estimate, there's no way to know if it's anywhere near the mark.

 

[Bateluer]

Right now it's a game of who cannibalizes RIM's share faster. 😀

Truth. Android is growing mostly by taking RIM's market share. Apple is nearly flat, based on a yearly average, most of the iPhone sales come from previous iPhone owners upgrading rather than new customers. WP7 is still sputtering in the garage, even developers seem to be abandoning it now.

Question is, what happens when RIM's share drops to the point where its only corporate customers? 😛

Samsung doesn't report anything, outside of revenue, which is the problem. Since I can't actually read the article and evaluate the method by which the company who made the 28 million device estimate actually came to that estimate, there's no way to know if it's anywhere near the mark.

Of course, the anonymous forum poster on the Internet obviously has a greater knowledge and experience than the professional market research firm. 🙄

 

[Red Storm]

I think we all knew that the long wait for a new iPhone would hurt Apple.

I think the question is, could this potentially hurt Apple long term? They don't exactly release new models very quickly, while the opposite is true for Android manufacturers.

I don't think it will, but going by Apple's release schedules, I think it might be a common sight to see them get leapfrogged like this while Apple fans await the next model.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Apple should post good numbers for Q4, in addition to the 4S, the 3GS and 4 are selling well. The gap til iphone5 will be populated by several Samsung phones including the Note, G Nexus and SGS3, catching up with Samsung will be a difficult task.

 

[Mopetar]

Of course, the anonymous forum poster on the Internet obviously has a greater knowledge and experience than the professional market research firm. 🙄

Not saying I can give a better estimate or have access to the kinds of data to even begin to form one. At best I could make a naive one based on revenue, but that assumes that the ASP remains the same.

That said, there's no way to verify the accuracy of this estimate. Another way to measure the likely veracity would be to look at other releases, predictions, etc. from this marketing firm made in the past several years and compare them with actual data, but once again this depends on the availability of their reports.

 

[Ns1]

Apple should post good numbers for Q4, in addition to the 4S, the 3GS and 4 are selling well. The gap til iphone5 will be populated by several Samsung phones including the Note, G Nexus and SGS3, catching up with Samsung will be a difficult task.

wtf does samsung do with all the leftover infuses? Those guys couldn't have sold that well...

 

[manly]

Truth. Android is growing mostly by taking RIM's market share. Apple is nearly flat, based on a yearly average, most of the iPhone sales come from previous iPhone owners upgrading rather than new customers. WP7 is still sputtering in the garage, even developers seem to be abandoning it now.

Question is, what happens when RIM's share drops to the point where its only corporate customers? 😛

Only half true. Yes, Apple's market share of a briskly growing market has stayed just under 30% YoY. But with corporate adoption of iPhones, Apple is definitely taking at least some of RIM's traditional customers. With the iPad and even iPod touch in tow, the iOS ecosystem as a whole is pretty healthy and highly profitable.

I think the question is, could this potentially hurt Apple long term? They don't exactly release new models very quickly, while the opposite is true for Android manufacturers.

I don't think it will, but going by Apple's release schedules, I think it might be a common sight to see them get leapfrogged like this while Apple fans await the next model.

The problem here was that they broke the June tradition and blogosphere rumor-mongering went absolutely ape-shit this summer. If Apple is smart (and they generally are), they'll stick to a Sept/Oct annual release date from now on because it feeds into the all-important holiday quarter. Pushing a release into Jan/Feb is leaving a LOT of money on the table even though smartphones are not inherently seasonal purchases. Going forward, it'll be absolutely critical that they release a new handset every 12 months even if Android OEMs have more aggressive product cycles.

Besides release date, it's all about innovation. I think the iPhone 4S has a great SoC relative to its predecessor and other industry leaders, but I'd say Apple has a problem in the future if their most advertised new feature is beta-ware (Siri). Not to say iOS 5 isn't a good release, but it's definitely an arms race to keep innovating on the software side. Since most customers don't know what a SoC is or how much RAM is truly important, being leapfrogged on hardware specs isn't necessarily disastrous if they keep executing a great upgrade every 12 months in both hardware and software.

Excellent question, and only time will tell.

 

[MrX8503]

So Samsung outselling Apple is proof enough but Samsung's endless copying machine is just a coincidence. Wow, makes sense to me.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Apple should post good numbers for Q4, in addition to the 4S, the 3GS and 4 are selling well. The gap til iphone5 will be populated by several Samsung phones including the Note, G Nexus and SGS3, catching up with Samsung will be a difficult task.

Sammy advantage in unit sales is that they offer a much, no make that MUCH wider selection of phones. I'd guess that if profit were the metric that Apple would likely still have the lead.

Still, I think Sammy caught Apple with there pants down and have out done Apple with the Galaxy SII, the new Nexus and the also new Note. These three phones cover a much larger spectrum than all of Apple and that's just part of Sammy's line up. It will be difficult for Apple to challenge Sammy's Note on two counts: A: Apple has been derisive of larger phones and, B: Jobs famously ridiculed the stylus claiming that if you saw a phone with one the maker blew it.

It looks to me that Apple saw this coming and THAT'S why they went after them with lawyers. That and the fact that Sammy went a little too far at following Apples design cues.


Brian

 

[Bateluer]

wtf does samsung do with all the leftover infuses? Those guys couldn't have sold that well...

I've seen a lot of Inspires, the standard 4.3in HTC, in the wild, but very few Infuses. But then, AT&T gets poor signal in most of my city, so I don't see too many people with AT&T handsets to begin with.

So Samsung outselling Apple is proof enough but Samsung's endless copying machine is just a coincidence. Wow, makes sense to me.

How dare they make a black&silver device with rounded corners. 😛 Hate to break this to you, but Samsung has learned their earlier fvck ups with the Beholds and Moments, moving to the much improved SGS1, and following it up with the considerably refined SGS2. By all accounts, the SGS2 is one of the best phones on the world market right now. Apple has to take out a competitor thats outselling them by double. By any means necessary, litigation, inventing false charges, etc.

Granted, it doesn't help that Samsung's lawyers might be legally retarded.

 

[Kenmitch]

Everyone held off buying an iP4 in hopes of landing an iP5 or a cheap 4 - I bet things even out a bit in the next quarter

I was one of those guys who waited....Of course now I'm sporting a SGS2 😀

 

[akugami]

to be fair that's still a huge lead unless retailers sit on 5M units of inventory at a time, worldwide?

Agreed. Unlike other markets like the video game console market, I don't think carriers will hold much extra stock. Android phones simply come out too quickly for them to hold millions in stock. Even if Samsung agrees to take the phones back at full cost, there is still the warehousing, shipping, etc. that carriers have to deal with.

[/quote]Couple points, for Apple it's all about profits. Market share is just a means to that end. Apple holds single digit worldwide market share in PCs, and something like 1/3 of industry profits (servers obviously excluded).[/quote]

True, and I believe that Apple makes about half of the profits out of all smartphones. But the explosive growth, no matter how much Apple makes, has to be cause for concern.

How dare they make a black&silver device with rounded corners. 😛 Hate to break this to you, but Samsung has learned their earlier fvck ups with the Beholds and Moments, moving to the much improved SGS1, and following it up with the considerably refined SGS2. By all accounts, the SGS2 is one of the best phones on the world market right now. Apple has to take out a competitor thats outselling them by double. By any means necessary, litigation, inventing false charges, etc.

Granted, it doesn't help that Samsung's lawyers might be legally retarded.

We've covered the copying to death. Those with an Android bias will 100% ignore the fact that the iPhone design patent is more than "black&silver device with rounded corners." Those who are the least unbiased (or with an Apple bias) will point this fact out in every single thread from now to Armageddon and there will still be those who conveniently ignore this fact.

Judges, (some will know them as idiots) from three countries have ruled against Samsung on the Apple vs Samsung patent litigation. I'll agree with the litigation comment but inventing false charges is an opinion and until all suits are final it will remain an opinion.

 

[Fire&Blood]

double post

 

[Phokus]

Question is, what happens when RIM's share drops to the point where its only corporate customers? 😛

Anecdotal, but i've never seen anyone BUT corporate customers for blackberrys... has anyone seen a person with a blackberry for personal use before? I sure haven't, not even pre-iphone.

 

[Ns1]

Anecdotal, but i've never seen anyone BUT corporate customers for blackberrys... has anyone seen a person with a blackberry for personal use before? I sure haven't, not even pre-iphone.

yep, they all (both of them...) moved on this year though. They stuck around for BBM but no longer.