Worldwide smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2015 rose 9.7% to 403 million units. While unit sales were high, growth was the slowest since the same quarter in 2008.
Samsung Electronics grabbed the market share lead in the fourth quarter with sales to end users totaling over 83 million units to nab 20.7% of the global market. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) ranked second with sales of more than 71 million units for a 17.7% share. In the fourth quarter of 2014, Samsung claimed 19.9% of the market with unit sales of more than 73 million and Apple posted unit sales of nearly 75 million units for a 20.4% share.
The lost market share is bad news for Apple, where iPhone sales accounted for 68% of revenues in the company’s first fiscal quarter ended in December.
It’s worth noting that Apple and Samsung combined account for 105% of the smartphone market’s profits. That means every other vendor is losing money, and Apple, which gets 91% of the profits, should be doing all it can to ensure that its share does not erode.
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