back to article Samsung is officially the WORLD'S BIGGEST smartphone maker

Samsung outsold every other smartphone maker combined during the third quarter of 2013, according to IDC. The consumer device maker shifted 81.2 million smart phones, giving it 31.4 per cent of the market and increasing its share by nearly half. Apple, Huawei, Lenovo and LG between them scraped up 69 million units. Nokia, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm still an HTC user, but do like the Sammy brand save for their huge screens. . I find 4.0" is the largest phone I want to use and the Mini S4 looks half decent at that size.

    Oh well. Once my current phone dies I'll look at them again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Nothing wrong with being a HTC user. They are at least honest unlike Samsung who manipulate benchmarks and pay people to rubbish the competition.

      Worlds biggest = most common.

      I hear Ford Focus card are popular too, but would you really expect anyone to care if you mentioned you owned one?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Worlds biggest = most common

        Sheeple... millions of Sheeple all across the galaxy (range)

        1. Frankee Llonnygog

          Re: Sheeple

          Generic phone-ist comment:

          YOU use different phone to me, therefore YOU must be a gullible idiot who's easily conned into buying overpriced crap just for the label.

          I use a Samsung/Apple/HTC/STC rotary dial phone (delete as appropriate) and therefore exude a subtle and stylish musk that makes women swoon and world leaders hang on my every word.

      2. Greg J Preece

        I hear Ford Focus card are popular too, but would you really expect anyone to care if you mentioned you owned one?

        I think you're using the wrong metrics when deciding what type of bloody phone to buy...

      3. JaitcH
        Happy

        Samsung has, at least, a range of models that wary in features AND colour.

        Apple just wrapped last years in coloured plastic as well as introducing a handset that captures fingerprints for Plod.

        What's a Focus card?

    2. SuccessCase

      No news in the headline. Its been true for the last two years that Samsung has sold more than anyone else. The news is the increase in percentage of sales.

    3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      S4 Mini vs HTC Mini - very much a matter of choice. I prefer AMOLED screens and the ability of using an SD card. The S4 Mini has some interesting options hidden in there - press home button to answer a call and gives me 2 days of use with the right settings.

      1. Don Jefe

        Trying to be an 'individual' by leveraging your use of consumer electronics is rather silly, regardless of the brand. Once you cross the line into 'millions sold' any individuality has long since been quite efficiently packaged up and tossed out with the rubbish.

        If you want to show 'individuality' get rid of mobile phones completely. Not having a technology is the only way you're going to be 'different'. I stopped using the Internet years ago.

        1. dan1980

          Nice one Don.

        2. James Micallef Silver badge
          Devil

          @Don

          " I stopped using the Internet years ago."

          El Reg allows comments by carrier pigeon? I would have thought the vulture would eat them!

          1. Don Jefe

            Re: @Don

            Everything I do on the Internet is done through a custom implementation of IRC (Intern Remedial Chore). College kids these days learn nothing useful in class so it's 100% up to their first employer to teach them valuable skills.

        3. Robert Grant

          Leveraging again, sigh. Try this complex alternative that doesn't sacrifice meaning:

          Trying to be an 'individual' through your use of consumer electronics is rather silly

          Magic! Also has the advantage of parsing as English.

          1. Don Jefe

            Your sentence has a completely different meaning though. My sentence implies one is weighting their sense of self worth by publicizing their personal choice in electronics; specifically a given brand. You sentence does not indicate the brand specific qualities the discussion is about and implies any use of any electronics is as a system of self valuation is silly.

            While the meaning of your sentence is also true, it is a different meaning.

            1. Robert Grant

              I see what you mean. I wasn't omitting the brand stuff deliberately. Just the leveraging bit.

              Incidentally (this is weird) I was thinking the other way that people would start saying "weighting" when they meant "increasing". Seriously. This is spooky.

              I think I need to start recording the current fashion of converting nouns that have associated verbs into new verbs (e.g. "reference" is the noun, 'refer to" the verb, becomes "reference" the verb, for no real reason).

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No wonder they feel like screwing over the users with quietly region-locking their phones

    http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/galaxy-note-3-region-lock-reportedly-staying-put-for-now-50012523/

  3. M Gale

    World's biggest smartphone maker?

    Or maker of the world's biggest smartphones?

  4. Anomalous Cowshed

    Outsold every other smartphone maker combined? The figures quoted don't add up then...

    1. Hellcat

      Rough maths:

      31% Samsung

      13% Apple

      5% Huawei

      5% Lenovo

      5% LG

      3% Nokia

      So Samsung has outsold the following 5 manufacturers - but combined make only 62% of the market. Who makes the other 38% which is around 100,000 units?

      1. AMB-York Silver badge
        Joke

        Blackberry on the up with 38%?

      2. Steve Knox

        Well, HTC, Motorola, and Blackberry aren't on the list. I'd guess they did about as well as Nokia (Note that the article didn't say Nokia was #6; only that it wasn't in the top 5.). Giving each of them 3% would leave about 29% remaining

        Then there's ZTE and the other low-end but still technically smartphone manufacturers. I'd guess there's at least 15 of them, so they're probably clustered around 1-2%. One or two may even have beat Nokia...!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Nokia were outselling Blackberry by 8:1 in the US earlier this year (5.6% versus 0.7%) and that's not one of Nokia's strongest markets...

      3. James Micallef Silver badge
        Coat

        That's what immediately jumped up ate me: if they outsold every other maker combined, their share should be more than 50. Someone is comparing Apple to oranges

      4. Frankee Llonnygog

        Who makes the other 38%?

        Same people that make the 62% Foxtronn, etc...

  5. messele

    I don't think the term 'smartphone' has much relevance now they have become so cheap and ubiquitous. Such are the economics of scale I'm surprised anything non-'smart' is made anymore.

    1. mr.K

      'cause they are better

      The non-smart phones are quite a bit cheaper. If I had the cheapest smartphone on the market I would be a bit annoyed if I broke it or lost it. A cheap non-smart phone, not so much. So there is that. Then there is all the other things that they are better at.

      They are safer, easier, more durable and you can easily go ten days without charging them.

      But it is a different product. If you don't need, don't want (at all, or in some situations) a smart phone, then it is a very good alternative that cost less than lunch. Some people own both a car and a bicycle.

  6. Randy Hudson

    Math Fail

    Wouldn't that have to be > 50%?

  7. Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure

    Simple Maths

    Samsung 31%

    All other makers combined then must be 100%-31% = 69%

    I expect you meant to say: "all the other major smartphone manufacturers".

    There is a long tail of "others" that add up to a large number of phones.

    1. Jedit Silver badge

      "I expect you meant to say: "all the other major smartphone manufacturers"."

      I think the total figures are for all handsets including those that are not smartphones. It's possible that Samsung's 31% share does represent more than 50% of the smartphones. I'm not sure how that works given that Windows phones (and possibly Blackberries) do technically count as smart and they make up more than 2% of the market, but still.

  8. Shane Sturrock

    How many of these are nasty Galaxy mini landfill phones?

    Samsung makes a mind boggling range of smartphones. Some are good, some less so, and then there's the bottom of the range cheapies. Would be interesting to see what proportion of their range accounts for their volume. A good Android phone is a nice device (our office has pretty much all bought Nexus 4's) but my experience with Samsung phones hasn't been so good as I don't like their attitude to updates or the changes they've made from stock Android. However, it is painfully obvious that many people are buying based on price and the 'galaxy' brand which is why they've spread that all over their range. What I don't tend to see is much loyalty with buyers of their phones and their practices regarding updates and the recent region locking issues don't endear them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How many of these are nasty Galaxy mini landfill phones?

      "What I don't tend to see is much loyalty with buyers of their phones and their practices regarding updates and the recent region locking issues don't endear them."

      That's correct, but there's nobody white than white in this regard. Given other buying considerations (OS preference, removable batteries, SD slot, screen size preference, app availability and functionality, maps/voice/camera add ons etc) it's very difficult to say that updates and region lock issues would tip the balance for many users.

      I have a near vanilla Android works phone, and a personal SGS2, and I actually think that the Sammy overlay is rather good (although I don't care for their bundled software that overlaps default Android inclusions) so they'll please as many as they offend. And probably the majority of buyers simply won't care about any of the anorak factors you and I consider, they'll buy on brand or what's hip in their peer group.

      1. Tom 13

        Re: majority of buyers simply won't care about any of the anorak factors

        That's the key point right there. Many phone buyers care about the cost of the phone + cost of monthly plan to make sure it is in their budget. After that does it Google/Bing/Firefox/Opera to what I what I want, and can I be a Twitter/FB with my friends. Hell, they likely don't even call it the Internet. Or if you prefer a slightly different context: they just want their "XP Word program to write their damn letters" as my mother once told me.

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: How many of these are nasty Galaxy mini landfill phones?

      I don't like their attitude to updates or the changes they've made from stock Android.

      The update policy, along with that of other manufacturers, has got a lot better. I think this has had as much to do with having the right people managing the software and its distribution as official policy. Kies used to be the biggest pile of shit out there, and on MacOS it pretty much still is. But now that OTA is working well that hardly matters.

      I find the UI fine but wish it would be easier to uninstall some of the apps that come preinstalled and that don't interest me at all. Then again rooting is hardly a problem, Samsung have never really tried to stop users doing it.

      1. Don Jefe

        Re: How many of these are nasty Galaxy mini landfill phones?

        To be fair, 'stock' Android would be a severe disappointment to most consumers. I think their stance with a 'blind eye' to rooting is the smart road for that small subset of users who wish to do so. I'm an iPhone user and see no point in rooting the phone, but not allowing it seems kind of silly. Even if I could, easily do it, I wouldn't want to fool with it and Apple still wouldn't have lost out on the whopping $9 I've spent on music through iTunes.

  9. AchimR
    Meh

    Lenovo

    I do wish that Lenovo phones were more available here too, they appear to be quite nice from the looks of it. (didn't look too much into specs just yet however, so I may be wrong...)

    Coming up in 2 months for a phone renewal with my carrier, looking around there doesn't appear to be that much choice with most carriers for Pay Monthly phones, mainly Samsung, Sony, Apple, Nokia, Blackberry, perhaps HTC and maybe even a Huawei here and there, but that's about it. Surprised almost none of the major carriers offer LG phones in a PM bundle, let alone other brands.

    Still unsure if I want to switch from SGS2 to 4, or buy something else in the end...

    1. Don Jefe

      Re: Lenovo

      I didn't even know Lenovo had phones. There must be some distribution contractual conflict (or something far removed from the customers view) or the sales guy I bought all our new Lenovo notebooks from would have been trying to sell me some. God knows he's tried sell me everything else Lenovo branded.

      I would be open to checking out their phones if offered the chance.

  10. Bladeforce

    Prefer Samsung over anything Nokia/Microsoft so very happy!

  11. ecofeco Silver badge
    Joke

    Combined?!

    All your base are definitely belong to us.

  12. Robert Grant
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