Samsung cruises past Apple in white-hot smartphone market

The two top smartphone vendors continue to rule the roost.

The two top smartphone vendors continue to rule the roost.

Looks like Samsung and Apple pretty much own the smartphone market, though there are some scrappy contenders starting to make headway.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), handset makers shipped a total of 337.2 million smartphones worldwide in the last quarter of 2015 (Q2). This is up 11.6 percent from last year, an amazing bit of growth considering how many smartphones are already on the loose.

Samsung shows a 21.7 percent market share while Apple comes in second at 14.1 percent for a total of 35.8 percent of a robust and growing global handset market.

“The overall growth of the smartphone market was not only driven by the success of premium flagship devices from Samsung, Apple, and others, but more importantly by the abundance of affordable handsets that continue to drive shipments in many key markets,” said IDC’s Anthony Scarsella in a statement.

The top two vendors are, of course, Apple and Samsung, though the latter Korean company has seen an overall decline in market share since last year. The limited supply of Galaxy S6 and S6 edge models may have kept sales a bit lower than projected, even if older Galaxy models continue to fly off the shelves to make Samsung the top vendor of smartphones in the world.

Apple came in second with its best fiscal third quarter ever, selling 47.5 million units of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. China especially snapped up the fruity handsets thanks to the larger screens and an expansion of LTE networks in the country.

Huawei, Xiaomi, and Lenovo round out the list of the top five highest-selling smartphone makers, proving that even if Apple and Samsung dominate, there’s plenty of room in the market to share.

Source: IDC