The number of smartphone shipments exceeded 375 million in Q4 2014, with an annual total of over 1.2 billion smartphones shipped for 2014, representing a 29 percent year-over-year growth.
That’s according to Juniper Research, which estimates that Samsung shipped an estimated 315 million smartphones in 2014, accounting for 25 percent of all smartphone shipments. However, the company witnessed another quarterly fall in shipments and market share, to just over 76 million in Q4 2014, representing a 3 percent decline.
Meanwhile, Apple posted a record quarter of 74.5 million iPhone sales, representing quarter-over-quarter growth of 90 percent, and year-over-year growth of 46 percent, compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. With the demand for iPhones driven by the 6 and 6 Plus models, the company for the first time ever sold more iPhones in China than in the U.S.
Despite closing in on Samsung in Q4, Apple had a market share of 15 percent for the full year in 2014.
Juniper Research also notes:
- Lenovo-Motorola combined is estimated to have shipped over 90 million smartphones in 2014, managing to improve its market share to just over 7 percent.
- Microsoft, meanwhile reported a 10.5 million Lumia shipments in Q4 2014, driven by low-cost models.
- Huawei improved its market share year-over-year, shipping over 70 million smartphones in 2014, with the Honor line of devices accounting for nearly 28 percent of the total.
