Apple Displaces Samsung, Becomes No1 Global Smartphone Vendor

Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner said, "With Apple dominating the premium phone market and the Chinese vendors increasingly offering quality hardware at lower prices, it is through a solid ecosystem of apps, content and services unique to Samsung devices that Samsung can secure more loyalty and longer-term differentiation at the high end of the market."

Also, loow end Smartphones have encouraged the users to switch from feature phones to Smartphone. This in turn pushed Smartphone Operating System to double digit growth especially in the emerging economies.  

On the other side Chinese vendors, such as Huawei and Xiaomi continue to improve their sales in China and other overseas markets on par with the big brands. Cozz said  that "Chinese vendors are no longer followers. They are producing higher quality devices with appealing new hardware features that can rival the more established players in the mobile phone market. Brand building and marketing will be key activities in deciding which Chinese vendors can secure a foothold in mature markets."

Cheap prices coupled with smart feature attracted the East Asian population to boost sales, while Chinese and other smaller players drove Android's performance in 2014. Furthermore, established players at the higher end of the market continued to struggle to increase their sales.

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