The smartphone market is controlled by the winners, especially those who have the most activations at a time. But who was the U.S. winner of the last quarter of 2014?
According to a survey from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, Apple and Samsung were the big winners of Quarter Four, 2014. The two companies had three-fourths of all phone activations in the three-month period. Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus accounted for more than 50 percent of all phone activations in the period. Samsung followed closely with 26-percent control of the market. The closest phone company to compete with those two was Motorola with a control of 4 percent of the market.
The CIRP survey is based on interviews with 500 Americans who recently activated either a used or new phone in the last quarter. The interviews occurred between the last week of December and the first week of January.
If the survey is accurate, it reflects a lot about the American market versus the International market. Americans have more excess wealth to spend on devices, which makes it easier for them to be more picky about their smartphones. This pickiness causes them to pick Samsung and Apple's devices, especially since Samsung and Apple both have a history of creating better - and more expensive - smartphones. However, in regions with less GDP, reports show that people are more interested in the cheaper phones, including the Microsoft Lumia series, the Yotaphone and the Vivo Xplay series, according to Android Headlines.
While Samsung was No. 2 in the US market, its international market shares are still plummeting. Samsung's leadership blames this on the rise of Xiaomi and Huawei in the Chinese smartphone market. In order to make up for this loss, Samsung told the public that it planned to decrease the amount of phones it release on a yearly basis in 2015, according to C-NET. The saved funds would be used to focus resources on fewer devices and take their marketing efforts to the next level.
