Rob Cihra, an analyst at Evercore, states Apple’s iPhone business may be growing faster than Samsung’s smartphone business. Cihra raises his iPhone estimate to 35 million units in the second quarter. If Apple hits that number, then sales would be up 12% on a year-to-year basis. Despite the fact that such growth rate is slower than the overall smartphone market, it is better than Samsung. According to Cihra estimates, South Korean giant has sold 81 million phones in Q2, which would only be a 6% bump on a year-to-year basis. Samsung’s growth is being stung by weakening sales in the mid- and low-price range. The Galaxy S5 still hits sales targets, but in emerging markets Samsung is still trying to sell out its first quarter inventory. Meanwhile, Chinese smart phone makers have greatly improved their own design, marketing, and branding and came back in 2014 with much better items. Mobile World Congress (MWC), the giant mobile industry trade show in Barcelona, was dominated by no-name Chinese phone manufacturers selling handsets operating on Android for $35-$100. Experts delivered a verdict of “a rather decent quality”. Interestingly, many specialists noted not only an apparently similar design resembling Samsung items, but also a similar marketing strategy. For Samsung, this is a major challenge which might cause sizable losses. Indeed, customers are not going to pay a big premium for the Samsung brand when they can get exactly the same functions on the same operating system (Android) for less money. Apple does not face the same sort of problem. Apple is the only company that makes the iPhone running on iOS.
