Although Apple has only released its first LTE phone in September, the Cupertino California company
seems to have already grabbed 26.7% of the global LTE device market,
according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. Despite the company’s
strong debut, Samsung remains on top of the pile for LTE devices for
the seventh quarter in succession; however Apple’s entry has had a
significant impact on its market share, which dropped 40% in the third
quarter, down from 50.9% three months previously.
LTE compatibility seems to be a feature that is high in demand for
consumers worldwide, although the U.S., Japan and Korea are the only
markets where the 4G technology is the most advanced. Strategy Analytics
estimates that this surge is powered largely due to the release of the
LTE-compatible iPhone
5 and Samsung Galaxy S3, which contribute to see global subscriptions
reach 50 million, a huge increase on the 9 million subscriptions that
were estimated to be active at the end of 2011.
Aside from Apple and Samsung, it’s the Korean handset makes which seem
to dominate the rest of the pack, although most of them saw their market
share drop when Apple started to gain traction. At the end of the third
quarter, LG held a 9.1% market share, down from 15% while Pantech hit
5.8%, ending up with a minor 0.1% increase. Google-owned Motorola, saw
its share of devices fall from 15% to 6.7%. The estimate of 50 million
global LTE subscriptions came from a prior report form Korea’s Park
Associates which came up with the same figure in July.
It was previously predicted that worldwide shipments of 4G-compatible
smartphones and tablets would reach 61 million this year. Similar to
Parks, the analyst firm ABI Research
revealed that it is seeing differing levels of interest from customers
across the globe. Despite everything, it’s still quite impressive to see
Apple’s iPhone 5 helping the Cupertino California company gain a
whopping 26.7% market share so quickly, especially considering that the
iPhone 5 was released just a few months ago.
Source: Strategy Analytics via The Next Web