Apple beats Samsung to smartphone glory

Apple has overtaken Samsung at the top of the smartphone tree according to Gartner, which said the iOS device maker beat the Korean leader in Q4 last year.

The reason for this shift was mostly down to the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which both demonstrated a slight change in strategy for Apple and resulted in record sales for the company in the US and China.

Apple iPhone sales shot up by 26 per cent during autumn last year, while Samsung lost more than a quarter of its Chinese market share - one of its most important markets - according to the research company.

Gartner research director Roberta Cozza said: "With Apple dominating the premium phone market and the Chinese vendors increasingly offering quality hardware at lower prices, it is through a solid ecosystem of apps, content and services unique to Samsung devices that Samsung can secure more loyalty and longer-term differentiation at the high end of the market."

In the quarter, Apple shifted almost 75,000 iDevices, while Samsung only managed 73,000. Third up was Lenovo (including Motorola) with 24,000 units and Huawei came in fourth with 21,000.

Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner added: "Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013. This downward trend shows that Samsung's share of profitable premium smartphone users has come under significant pressure."

More than 1.2 billion smartphones, including iOS, Android and Windows Phone were sold across the world in 2014, which shows a 29.9 per cent increase year-on year.