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Samsung obliterates its rivals, sells more phones than Apple, Nokia, and LG put together

samsung galaxy note 3 rear case
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We know Samsung sells plenty of phones and commands a serious amount of market share. However, the latest research from Strategy Analytics shows the just how much it’s obliterating the competition. Between July and September this year, Samsung sold 120 million phones around the world, enough to make it the clear leader, but cementing its colossal advantage is the fact it’s more than Nokia, Apple, and LG combined.

These three trail Samsung in the charts, selling 64 million, 33 million, and 18 million respectively, giving a total of 115 million phones sold. Huawei takes fifth position with 14 million phones sold globally. Add Huawei’s sales and you get more than Samsung’s total, but only just. It’s an amazing performance.

Samsung’s incredible tally gives it a 28 percent share of the global phone market, according to Strategy Analytics, up from 26 percent this time last year. Nokia trails with 15 percent, which is down from 21 percent last year. In third place it’s Apple, up from 7 percent in 2012 to 8 percent today. LG has also made some gains, thanks to its decision to include Europe when it launches new hardware, and has risen to just over 4 percent global market share. Huawei has made modest gains, but still ranks fifth with a 3 percent share.

Nowhere to be seen, and therefore dumped into the Others category are HTC, Sony, ZTE, BlackBerry, and the many manufacturers concentrating their efforts on China, such as Lenovo and Xiaomi. The report says Alcatel and Coolpad are the fastest growing names in Asia and parts of Western Europe, although neither have made any impact in the U.S. yet.

In total, 417 million mobile phones – that’s smartphones and feature phones together – were sold between July and September this year, a 7 percent increase over the 390 million sold last year, and the highest increase since 2011.

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Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
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