Five charts to start your day

Apple now tops Samsung as the world biggest smartphone manufacturer

You would be surprised how many people didn't know this. Samsung held the top spot for so long as a smartphone maker. It was the king of smartphones in the emerging markets.

The company absolutely trounced Apple by flooding these economies with lower-end, yet good-quality handsets. What’s interesting is that they also managed to deliver a premium range of handsets that comfortably rivalled Apple’s own iPhone lineup. In fact, I even switched to a Samsung Galaxy for about four years before returning to iPhone.

What’s interesting, though, is that Apple was never really a threat to Samsung. What has eroded Samsung's market share is not Apple’s dominance, but rather the emergence of highly innovative Android smartphone manufacturers in China. They have not only managed to match Samsung’s quality, but they have also been extremely innovative.

Subsequently, Apple now tops Samsung in the percentage share of the global market by shipment. However, this has less to do with Apple’s dominance and more to do with competitors moving into the markets that Samsung has traditionally targeted.

Source: Eeagli

Coming up:

• Some economist forecast a whole year of rate cuts

• Eli Lilly shares soar despite a tough past year for pharmaceutical companies

• Latin America has more airports than Asia and Europe combined

• UK inflation surprisingly ticked upward in December

If you like what you see here, and you would like to view the other four charts, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It costs less than two cups of coffee for a whole month’s access.