Apple and Samsung combined took a 41.3% share of collective PC, portable PC, tablet and smartphone shipments in 2012. This, from a report by IDC covering “smart connected devices,” which reached shipments of 367.7 million units in the last quarter of 2012, up 28.3% from one year ago.
Driving the shift toward the so-called smart connected devices were Apple and Samsung, which combined took a 41.3 percent share of the market in the December quarter. While Apple was the previous number one vendor, taking a large portion of smartphone sales and being largely uncontested in the tablet arena, Samsung edged out the Cupertino, Calif., company by a little over 3 million shipped units for the last quarter of 2012.
For the entire year, IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Smart Connected Device Tracker saw manufacturers ship 1.2 billion devices, a 29.1% rise from 2011.
Apple and Samsung were the driving forces behind the shift toward the “smart connected devices.” Apple had been the previous No. 1 vendor, taking a big bite of smartphone sales and largely flying uncontested in the tablet skies, but this time Samsung edged out the Cupertino, Calif., company by a little over 3 million shipped units for the last quarter of 2012.
Samsung took 21.2% of the market with shipment numbers of 77.9 million, up 86% from the year ago quarter, while Apple’s marketshare grew by 29.7 over the same period, grabbing 20.3% of the market with shipments totaling 74.8 million units.
Taking a distant third-place was Lenovo, taking 6.6% of the market with 24.3 million devices, and HP and Sony rounded out the top five, with unit shipments of 15.1 million and 11.1 million, representing 4.1% and 3% of the market, respectively.
Please note in reports like this that Samsung does not release shipment totals. All Samsung numbers are merely estimates by IDC. Apple releases their unit sales totals each quarter. Also, shipments do not equal sales to end users. IDC, for the purposes of their report, determines what constitutes a “smartphone.”
