According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, strong iPhone 5 sales and a record-breaking holiday quarter have pushed Apple ahead of Samsung in US mobile phone marketshare with a brawny 34%.
For the first time ever, the Cupertino company has become the largest mobile phone vendor in the United States. And for the first time since 2008, Samsung is not. We've got more on the report after the fold...
Strategy Analytics reported earlier today that Apple passed Samsung as the top US mobile phone vendor for the first time ever last quarter. The move was attributed to the company's big holiday push and strong iPhone 5 sales.
How strong? Well according to the NPD Group, Apple's latest handset was the top selling smartphone in the final quarter of last year. It accounted for 43% of all iPhone sales, and nearly 2/3 of all post-paid smartphones above $199...
We have long believed that many Android devices wind up in desk drawers, gathering dust, while Apple gadgets go bopping around on the web. That suspicion was confirmed Friday morning by new browser data showing Android usage is down 13 percent while iOS use is up. The figures by Net Applications once more illustrate the many ways to pick winners and losers.
According to Net Applications, an Internet measurement firm that tracks browser usage, the percent of mobile browser using Android has fallen 13 percent after peaking at 28 percent in November 2012. By contrast, browsers on iOS rose since October 2012 following Apple introducing the iPhone 5 and iPad mini...
In another round of legal back and forth, a U.S. appeals court on Thursday again rejected Apple's attempt at the Galaxy Nexus sales ban, Reuters reports. The news gathering organization characterized the court's decision as "dashing the iPhone maker's attempt to recover crucial leverage in the global patent wars".
Apple could still appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court though success is not guaranteed as the high court "has made it more difficult for patent plaintiffs to secure sales injunctions in recent years".
The full trial is scheduled for March 2014. The Galaxy Nexus case is based on patents that were not part of the high-stake Apple v. Samsung trial which culminated when a California jury awarded Apple with $1.05 billion in damages in August 2012...
New research shows number one tablet maker Apple shipped more iPads while also losing market share during the 2012 holiday fourth quarter. The company shipped nearly 23 million tablets during the period, a dramatic increase from the same time in 2011, when 15.1 million Apple tablets shipped.
At the same time, Apple's overall share of the tablet market fell for the second quarter in a row, slipping to 43.6 percent from 46.4 percent during the third quarter of last year - and down from 51.7 percent a year ago, according to IDC.
Apple ended the year with 48.1 percent year-over-year growth while number two tablet rival Samsung saw its growth more than double. A combination of Android and Windows-based tablet sales helped push the South Korean firm's share of the tablet market to 15.1 percent, up from 7.3 percent in 2011...
Last August, a California jury found Samsung guilty of infringing on several Apple patents in a high-profile trial. The initial damages awarded to Apple totaled $1.05 billion, but since Samsung was found to have 'willfully' infringed, that amount was expected to multiply.
Not so fast. The two companies have been attending post-trial hearings with Judge Lucy Koh over the past few months to plead their cases for appeals and other motions. And tonight, Judge Koh has issued a ruling overturning the jury's willful infringement finding...
Are iPhone owners going through the Asian version of the 7-year-itch? Once head over heels in love with Apple's iPhone, many consumers in Singapore and Hong Kong are straying, increasingly adopting Android devices. The iPhone could be a victim of its own success as some Asian Apple fans increasingly turn to Samsung as a way to show they are different from the crowd.
From Hello Kitty to crazy game shows, the West traditionally turns to the East for cutting-edge trends. The latest import could be a wave of anti-iPhone sentiment sweeping the Pacific Rim. One Asian nation has gone from one of the world's largest iOS markets to a doubling of Android devices. Are we witnessing the beginnings of 'iPhone fatigue?'...
We've said it before, and yet another analyst confirms it: the smartphone market is a duopoly of Apple and Android. The two firms control 92 percent of the market, according to Strategy Analytics researchers. What does this mean? Of the 217 million smartphones shipped during the final quarter of 2012, 200 million were powered either by iOS or Android.
The concentration of the smartphone market in two hands is just the latest indication of an industry-wide consolidation. After mobile consumers in North America and Western Europe spent 2011 shifting from simple handsets to more capable phones, global smartphone growth in 2012 slowed to 43 percent from 64 percent...
Lost in all of the talk of Apple's declining profits was that the iPhone now accounts for a quarter of all smartphones shipped globally in 2012.
Although Samsung's triple-digit yearly growth-rate blinded many observers, Apple last year did eek out 47 percent growth.
It was enough to make Apple the only smartphone maker beside the South Korean firm to show any growth at all in 2012. Apple shipped 136.8 million iPhones in 2012, up from 93.1 million units in 2011, according to technology researcher IDC. Wednesday, Apple announced it shipped 47.8 million iPhones during the fourth quarter of last year...
Samsung's first crack at cornering Apple into providing the iOS source code came in November 2011, when it argued at an Australian court it needed to take a look into the iPhone 4S firmware in order to determine the extent of an alleged patent infringement.
And on its own turf in South Korea, the Galaxy maker is putting pressure on the Cupertino, California firm to reveal the iOS 6 source code to judge whether Apple's mobile operating system - specifically, the Notification Center feature - infringes its technology patents.
To say that Apple wasn't impressed would be an understatement: lawyers for the iPhone maker called Samsung's request “insane” and argued its rival is trying to force it into revealing its “most important data”...
A court in Germany has ruled that Apple's iPhone infringes upon Samsung's patents related to 3G wireless technology and has issued an order to stay a German Samsung v. Apple lawsuit. Patent blogger Florian Müeller who follows tech litigation explains that the case will be adjudicated only after the validity of this patent. Apple, of course, is challenging the validity of Samsung's patent, but that will likely take years to resolve...
The Galaxy maker, Samsung of South Korea, has cunningly persuaded judges to review their preliminary ruling that more than a dozen Samsung devices copied Apple's patented iPhone features, Bloomberg reports this morning.
Last October, a judge with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) recommended that trade agency impose an import ban on the infringing Samsung device. ITC confirmed Thursday it will review the preliminary ruling.
As a result, Samsung has managed to push back a final decision, which was originally scheduled for March 27...