Wednesday Apple Rumors: iPhone 5 Top Smartphone in Q4

Advertisement

daily apple rumors AAPLHere are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:

On Top: Shipments of Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 5 easily surpassed those of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S3 smartphone during the final quarter of 2012, AppleInsider notes. Apple shipped 27.4 million iPhone 5’s during the quarter, compared to 15.4 million for the Galaxy S3, according to industry research firm Strategy Analytics. That made the iPhone 5 the world’s best-selling smartphone during the fourth quarter. Shipments of the Galaxy S3 actually declined during the fourth quarter, falling about 14% from 18 million units shipped during the third quarter. Apple shipped 17.2 million iPhone 4S units during the fourth quarter, which also topped Galaxy S3 shipments. In fact, Apple shipped more iPhone 4S units in the fourth quarter of last year than it did in the third quarter, despite the surging popularity of the iPhone 5.

Not Related: A hiring freeze at Foxconn’s Chinese factories is not related to production of the iPhone 5, Bloomberg notes. Earlier media reports that the company, Apple’s primary manufacturing partner for iPhones and iPads, has stopped recruiting new workers in mainland China sparked speculation that the move was in response to weak demand for Apple’s flagship phone. However, a spokesman for Foxconn said that the hiring freeze was put into place after more workers returned to the company’s factories after the Chinese New Year holiday than had in previous years and was not connected to iPhone 5 manufacturing.

Less Cool: Apple is in danger of losing its standing as the “coolest company in the technology industry, Steve Wozniak tells Bloomberg. Wozniak co-founded Apple along with the last Steve Jobs in the 1970s. He noted that the latest Apple products were no longer clearly superior to devices from other technology companies, including Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). He also thinks that Apple should explore the possibility to allowing iTunes to work with non-iOS devices. This isn’t the first time Wozniak has warned Apple that it might be losing its edge. Earlier this month, he said that Apple was falling behind other smartphone makers.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2013/02/wednesday-apple-rumors-iphone-5-top-smartphone-in-q4/.

©2024 InvestorPlace Media, LLC