Stefan Mileschin

The latest figures from IDC on shipments of smartphones in the first calendar quarter of this year saw Samsung take the lead worldwide.

During the quarter, vendors shipped 336.5 million smartphones – which is a 16.7 percent increase compared to the same quarter last year.

While Apple was in the lead in the last calendar quarter of 2014, Samsung has regained its lead despite global demand for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Anthony Scarsella, a research manager at IDC, said: “Samsung’s shipments, given that the S6 was not launched into the market for the full quarter, were driven by large volumes into emerging market and steady demand for its midrange and lower priced smartphones.”

IDC’s figures march in step with Strategy Analytics’ results, which we reported earlier today.

The market research company said all vendors in the sector will be squeezed by falling average selling prices and it expects there will be a battle between Samsung’s S6 and and Apple’s iPhone 6.

The top five vendors in the first quarter were Samsung, Apple, Lenovo, Huawei and LG ELectronics, with market shares of 24.5%, 18.2%, 5.6%, 5% and 4.6% respectively.

http://www.techeye.net/business/sams...martphone-lead