
Samsung reportedly broke records by shipping 12.5 million handsets in the first quarter of 2013, more than doubling sales of Apple’s iPhone, which saw sales of 6.1 million units. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung broke a smartphone sales record in the booming Chinese smartphone market during the first quarter.
The South Korean giant boosted its share of the Chinese smartphone market by 2.2% quarter-on-quarter, leaving the Korean company with 18.5% of all sales for the three month period ending in March. This is the first quarter that Samsung has sold over 10 million smartphones in the country. Following Samsung, places two through five went to Chinese companies including Huawei, Lenovo, Coolpad and ZTE in that order. Apple landed in sixth place with 6.1 million iPhones sold during the first quarter.
Overall, Chinese consumers purchased roughly 67.4 million smartphones from January to March, accounting for about 32% of all worldwide handset sales. Although it’s difficult but not impossible to make comparisons between sales and shipments, Strategy Analytics’ findings are somewhat in line with shipping estimates which were previously released by Canalys. The report claimed overall Chinese smartphone shipments came out to 82 million units, with Samsung holding 20% of the market, up 2.3% from the previous quarter.
Samsung joined Apple which saw iPhone shipments good enough for sixth place, to become the only two foreign companies to earn spots on China’s top-ten smartphone manufacturer list for the first quarter. While specific numbers are disputed in the two reports, it is clear that China has become the world’s largest smartphone market, therefore becoming the next battleground for smartphone companies from around the globe.
We’ll have to see if Apple’s future plans will change the company’s success in emerging markets such as China.
Source: Korea Herald via The Next Web
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