Apple now biggest US phone seller

NEW YORK (AP) – The launch of the iPhone 5 and the declining popularity of non-smartphones have made Apple the biggest seller of phones in the US for the first time, research firm Strategy Analytics said Friday.

The firm estimates that Apple shipped 17.7 million iPhones of all kinds to US buyers in the October to December period, meaning it accounted for one in three new phones.

Samsung Electronics of Korea was close behind, shipping 16.8 million phones, including non-smart ones. Samsung has been the largest seller of phones to the US market since 2008, Strategy Analytics said.

NPD Group, another research firm, found that Samsung phones still outsold the iPhone in the quarter, by 31 per cent to 29 per cent. It tracks retails sales while Strategy Analytics tracks shipments, so the numbers are not directly comparable.

Worldwide, it’s clear that Samsung is still the biggest phone vendor with 23 per cent of the market, according to a third research firm, IDC. Apple is number three, with 9.9 per cent of the market. In between sits Nokia with 17.9 per cent.

Samsung beats Apple globally even when only smartphones are considered.

It shipped 63.7 million units worldwide versus Apple’s 47.8 million.