Smartphone shipments surged to a record high in the third quarter, but Apple continued to lose ground as lower-cost devices proliferate in emerging markets. Research firm Strategy Analytics on Monday evening issued its smartphone figures for the third quarter, suggesting that total global shipments jumped 45% annually in Q3 to a record 251 million units, topping a quarter-billion for the first time ever. That monstrous figure was driven largely by Samsung, which shipped an estimated 88.4 million smartphones, up from 56.9 million units in the third quarter last year, to capture a record 35% of the global market. According to Strategy Analytics’ numbers, Samsung now ships nearly 1 million smartphones each day. Apple, which Strategy Analytics still measures by end-user



More...