Samsung Still Leads in Smartphones

South Korean tech giant Sammy is still on the lead in the global smartphones market, despite witnessing plummeting market trends and declining profitability. Upon a surface look at the data, it is evident that Samsung still has taken the world by storm when it comes to smartphones shipments. But upon a closer look, one will note that the Asian technology powerhouse is fighting an aggressive war to stay at the top.During quarter 3 of this year, Samsung sold 73.2 million smartphones globally, which squarely translates into a market share of 24.4 percent. According to a research document published Monday by research firm Gartner, Samsung sold 80.4 million smartphones during the same period in 2013. This was a 32.1 percent market share.But the company’s troubles cannot be blamed on a troublesome smartphone market. Indeed, the global smartphone market saw a sales jump from 250.3 devices in 2013 to 301 million devices in 2014. This means that if Samsung had maintained the same performance it has exhibited in 2013, it’d have sold more devices at the same market share.Apple was among the biggest winners in the latest market research report released. Apple sales improved from 30.3 million last year to 38.2 million this year. Other companies that recorded positive results include China’s Huawei and Xiaomi. Respectively, Huawei witnessed a rise by 4.3 million units year over year to 16 million. Xiaomi has taken china and the surrounding Asian market by storm. Sales figures for this company rose from 3.6 million recorded in Q3 of 2013 to 15.8 million recorded in the same quarter this year.Samsung’s data trends drew the most attention from expert analysis of the report. The company has been witnessing declining sales every financial filing. Most of this backwards performance has been attributed to increasing competition from the likes of emerging Chinese giants. More so, the company also made some management changes recently in the hopes to streamline its structure to be able to compete better.  As usual, it’s likely that Samsung will have a smart card to re-assert their position in the global smartphones market. It’ll be interesting to see what moves they pull as the next financial year kicks in January.