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Thanks to the iPhone 6, Apple led worldwide smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2014

Thanks to the iPhone 6, Apple led worldwide smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2014

Apple's Ups & Downs
March 3, 2015

Record setting sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus helped propel Apple to the lead in worldwide smartphone sales during the fourth quarter of 2014. That’s according to a new report from Gartner.

According to the company, Apple sold 74.8 million handsets during the period to capture 20.4 percent of the market. Samsung sold 73 million units for a 19.9 percent market share.

q4numbers

Gartner’s sales numbers for the fourth quarter of 2014.

Compared to the same time frame in 2013, those numbers really show a stark change. During the holiday quarter in 2013, Samsung sold 83 million units to capture almost 30 percent of the market. Apple’s 50.2 million units sold were good enough for a 17.8 percent market share.

The news wasn’t all bad for Samsung, though. Overall in 2014, the South Korean company sold 307.5 million handsets and took home 24.7 percent of the market. With the late boost, Apple garnered a 15.4 percent market share with 191.4 million units sold during the year.

In 2014, more than 1.2 billion smartphones were sold to users worldwide – 28.4 percent more than the previous year. That figure also represented almost two-thirds of the overall phone market.

It will definitely be interesting to see where these numbers head in 2015. With the Galaxy S6 taking a huge dose of inspiration from Apple’s popular handsets, can Samsung stop its big slide? And on Apple’s side, will the Apple Watch help sell even more iPhones?

For other news today, see: Google could lose billions if Apple doesn’t renew its iOS search deal, An updated list of the merchants, cards and apps that accept Apple Pay, and Nissan exec welcomes possibility of an Apple Car.

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