While significantly disagreeing on the shipment or sales numbers of its rivals, analysis firms IDC and Gartner have agreed that Apple surpassed all expectations in a number of areas with its record-shattering calendar Q4 performance, with Gartner awarding Apple the crown of top smartphone seller in the world. An earlier report by IDC had Apple barely missing the top spot, claiming that Samsung shipped 75.1 million units, despite a sharp drop in profits and revenue.
Both companies are clearly speculating on the numbers, with IDC correctly reporting Apple’s actual revealed sell-through figures of 74.5 million iPhones sold globally during the holiday season. Gartner, mysteriously, claims Apple sold an additional 300,000 units for a total of 74.8 million, but could be basing this on an estimate of some leftover channel inventory from the previous quarter.
IDC figures for calendar Q4
Because no Android manufacturer reveals exact sales numbers, both companies are forced to guess on shipment volumes (which clearly do not always correlate to actual sales), resulting in huge discrepancies between the two firms on how well Apple’s top rivals did. IDC, for example, believes Samsung shipped 75.1 million units, while Gartner reports 73 million, a difference of two million units — nearly the same amount the two firms disagreed on in the year-ago quarter.
However, the general trend from a year ago is more or less the same: Apple’s share went up by almost 50 percent, Samsung’s went down by around 11-15 percent. IDC believes Apple had just under 20 percent marketshare for the quarter, while Gartner assigns it a more generous 20.4 percent.
Gartner sales estimates for calendar Q4
In terms of growth, however, the big winner was neither of the two top sellers. Xiaomi more than tripled its shipments compared to a year ago by both analysis firm’s reckoning, while Lenovo’s shipments either went up by 50 percent or 78 percent, depending on who you ask — though Gartner and IDC roughly agree on how much impact that had on market share, with both saying the two China based firms hold around five percent (Xiaomi) and six percent (Lenovo) of the market respectively. That both companies can do so well with smartphones not sold outside of the emerging markets speaks to the enormous influence that collection of countries — dominated by China and India — have on global smartphone sales.
Apple’s move to king of the hill on smartphone sales is unlikely to extend for long – Samsung has just released its flagship S6, which may do better than the disappointing S4 and S5 did, and continues to percolate with its Galaxy Note line. On a platform level, little has changed: Android still dominates the market (particularly when no-name “other” brands are factored in), though iOS did manage to increase its share in Q4, while the overall trend across 2014 saw Apple’s platform suffer a very small dip in marketshare.
Still, it is difficult to reconcile the two companies’ view of the landscape; Gartner, which claims to provide estimates of actual sales, says the top five makers combined sold about 211.5 million units in calendar Q4, while IDC — which specifically says it is reporting on shipments, not sales — claims around 216 million units were moved in the same period — a total discrepancy of nearly five million units across the top five makers, with IDC’s figures favoring Samsung and Huawei, while Gartner’s estimates lean towards Apple, Lenovo, and Xiaomi.
