Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

... and so the pressure builds on Apple to diversify, which is what killed it last time. Really Apple needs to invent and come up with something special, but as SJ would tell you - which idea do you pick?

Does it? It may not ship the units that Samsung ships but it makes far more money off the smaller number of units it does sell.

The reality is that Apple were the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world for one quarter. It would be more accurate to view the fact that they were (briefly) number one as a blip rather than see it as a major title they lost and something they need to react to.

What other stats make sense to the company? It is called "business" for a reason.

This is true but it's something both sides are guilty of.

The most vocal Android proponent I know carps on about market share incessantly as a measure of it's superiority despite having spent the best part of two decades reacting to Window's dominance with the old "eat shit, a billion flies can't be wrong".

The truth is that both sides have some interesting challenges ahead.

Google have just bought a device maker (who just posted a significant loss) which could very realistically harm it's relationships with other manufactures (including Samsung). Meanwhile Samsung - the best Android phone manufacturer right now - are also now signed up to provide Windows Phones and are investing in Bada. And pretty much all Android phone manufacturers are operating on pretty thin margins because of the competition.

Plus Kindle and others are starting to fragment what Android means - are app developers going to be held back by having to keep things running on the far older Fire version if they want to access what is likely to be a massive market? Oh, and those pesky little patents suits aren't going anywhere in a hurry and are likely to be, at the very least, expensive. On the upside it now has a mass market advantage and a lot of people betting on it.

Meanwhile Apple's previous unrivalled dominance in terms of product quality has significantly eroded (if not disappeared altogether) and it's iPod -> iPhone upgrade path is dropping away as the iPod ceases to be a big seller (though the Mac is now becoming mass market which at the very least boosts the Apple brand and awareness).

The iPad is still the undisputed king of tablets but that's likely to at the very least come under more sustained pressure than it has so far as further iterations of Android tablets improve. Plus the potential for a post-Jobs psychological hit exists and, those patent suits aren't just running one way.

And both of them are going to be threatened by Nokia and MS getting their shit together with a couple of nice looking phones, a billion dollar marketing budget and a shed load of brand recognition in the mass market space.

Bottom line - I don't think anyone should carp right now, this thing is a long way from playing out.

Tablets?