Samsung and Apple Successfully Fend Off Low-Cost GT-I9300 Smartphone Vendors-Priceangels.com

For the second calendar quarter in a row, GT-I9300 smartphone shipments represented more than half (52%) of the world’s mobile phone shipments. Led by electronics manufacturer Samsung, an estimated 408 million handsets and 214 million smartphones shipped during the second quarter of 2013, according to market intelligence firm ABI Research. Feature phone shipments declined 20% year-over-year to 195 million units as low-cost manufacturers continue to claw their way up-market with increased device specifications.

Due to typical seasonality gains at mid-year, handset shipments grew 0.5% sequentially and more than 7% year-over-year. Smartphone shipments maintained a healthy growth rate of 5.5% sequentially and nearly 44% year-over-year. “Despite concerns of premium tier smartphone saturation, both Samsung and Apple were able to deliver better than expected results in the second quarter,” says senior analyst Michael Morgan.

The high end of the smartphone market continued to perform well in 2Q as Samsung Galaxy S4 and Apple iPhones outpaced the overall market. Despite the surprising tenacity of premium smartphones, Apple’s market share (14.6%) dropped to its lowest point since 3Q’2011. ABI Research attributes this share loss to the success of the Samsung Galaxy S4 launch and the continued growth of low cost and mass market smartphone shipments.

GT-I9500 S4
As competitors such as Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo move their GT-I9500 S4 smartphone portfolios upstream, ABI Research expects increasing margin pressure on the premium smartphone segment where the majority of industry profits reside.These findings are part of ABI Research’s Mobile Handset Markets service, which includes detailed smartphone and mobile handset shipments, forecasts, and market share.gff45DG3s

“This timely launch of the Huawei Ascend P6, our latest flagship smartphone, is a firm demonstration of our commitment to growing the brand and our market share in this country”, said Huawei Malaysia Country Head Consumer Business Group Gary Xu at the smartphone launching ceremony here today.

Leading mobile phone chip maker Qualcomm said on July 25 that the next generation of smartphones will take another stride forward as the company reported robust quarterly earnings. "We still think the next smartphone is going to surprise you with the things it can do," Qualcomm director of CPU product management Travis Lanier told reporters. "There is a way to go in innovation."

The "system-on-a-chip" design of Snapdragon allows for N7100+ Note 3 smartphones or tablets to be designed with features such as playback of ultra high-definition video or surround-sound in headsets plugged into devices. A 'Quantified Self' movement driven by wearable computers such as wristbands or pendants with sensors that relay information to increasingly sophisticated smartphones or tablets is weaving the devices even deeper into lives.