Friday Apple Rumors: iPhone’s Global Market Share Slips

by Christopher Freeburn | July 26, 2013 1:09 pm

[1]Here are your Apple rumors[2] and AAPL news items for today:

Drop: According to data from ABI Research, the iPhone’s worldwide market share has fallen to its lowest level in four year[3]s, USA TODAY notes. The market research firm estimates that Apple (AAPL[4]) held 13.1% of the world’s smartphone market during the second calendar quarter of this year, retaining its position as the second largest smartphone maker. That is down from 16.6% in the same period last year. Apple surprised analysts by reporting sales of more than 31.2 million iPhones during the June quarter. Wall Street had expected sales of just 26 million iPhones. ABI says that Samsung continues to hold the largest share of the global smartphone market. LG Electronics and Lenovo were ranked as the third and fourth-largest smartphone makers, respectively, by ABI.

Title: Consumers still regard Apple as the best technology brand[5], PC Magazine notes. Apple received the top score among technology companies in the 2013 Harris Poll EquiTrend survey. More than 38,000 U.S. consumers were surveyed as part of the study. The iPad-maker was named “brand of the year” in the computer, tablet, and mobile phone segments.  Apple generated high scores for familiarity, quality, and purchase consideration among consumers participating in the survey. In fact, Apple’s brand momentum scores for its computers, tablets and smartphones ranked in the top 30 of all 1,500 brands included in the survey. The iPad outscored Amazon‘s (AMZN[6]) Kindle, Samsung’s Galaxy line of tablets and Google‘s (GOOG[7]) Nexus tablets, while the iPhone topped the smartphone rankings.

Contest: Apple faces an uphill battle[8] against smartphone rival Samsung in China, Reuters reports. Though Apple has identified China an important market, it said this week that quarterly revenue there fell 14% compared to the same time last year. The company has also so far failed to bring the iPhone to the world’s largest wireless carrier China Mobile (CHL[9]). Samsung now holds about 19% of the Chinese smartphone market, compared to just 9% for Apple. Samsung currently has three times as many Chinese retail stores as Apple, though the iPhone-maker is planning to double its number of retail stores in China by 2015. Samsung has moved aggressively to build alliances with Chinese companies and promote its products to Chinese consumers. Additionally, the South Korean electronics giant offers a far greater array of products, many offering features tailored to local markets. Aside the challenge from Samsung, Apple must contend with a myriad of smaller Chinese manufacturers producing low cost smartphones.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors[10] stories.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/07/friday-apple-rumors-iphones-global-market-share-slips/

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