Is Samsung Biting the Big Apple?

Samsung stretched its lead over Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the global mobile phone market in the second quarter, pulling ahead as its two rivals faced contrasting reasons for slowed growth. According to a report from Gartner, Samsung sold 90.43 million mobile devices in the second quarter for a 21.6 percent share of the market. The Korean company moved up from a 20.7 percent share in the first quarter and up from 16.3 percent from the year-ago quarter.

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Second-placed Nokia took most of the brunt of Samsung’s growth as its market share fell to 19.9 percent from 22.8 percent a year ago. While Apple’s market share went up to 6.9 percent from 4.6 percent a year ago, the demand for its iPhone weakened compared with the previous quarter. Consumers have been waiting for the launch of the next-generation iPhone, expected to be announced in the next two months, and have been holding off purchasing existing models of the Apple smartphone. But while Nokia struggles to make a deep enough mark, Samsung has been seeing incredible success for its Galaxy line, especially the newest, Galaxy S3.

Total mobile sales dropped 2.3 percent year-over-year to 419 million units. Of those, 154 million were smartphones, according to Gartner.

The share of Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system was also up, as it accounted for 64 percent of all smartphones in the quarter compared with 43 percent from a year ago. Apple’s iOS gained marginally, to be at 18.8 percent from 18.2 percent a year earlier. Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) share of 2.7 percent for its Windows Phone platform was tiny, but almost double of its share from a year ago.

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