Samsung's S4 Helps It Beat Apple In U.S. Sales - Business Insider

Samsung sold more smartphones than Apple in May in the U.S., Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley says in a report this morning.

Walkley's data is based on store surveys he does.

This is the first time Samsung outsold Apple in the U.S. since the iPhone 5 launched at the end of September.

Walkley says, "In the U.S. market, the Samsung Galaxy S4 was the top-selling smartphone at Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile, and second best-selling smartphone at AT&T to the iPhone 5."

The S4, combined with strong sales of the S3 and Galaxy Note II gave Samsung the top sales spot in the U.S.

Samsung's marketing is the reason its selling more phones than anyone else, says Walkley: "We believe dominant sales of the S4 versus other Android smartphones was driven by Samsung's extremely strong Galaxy consumer brand and well-executed marketing campaign, as our surveys indicated store representatives often recommended the HTC One ahead of the Galaxy S4."

This happened last year, too. Samsung's strong brand is giving it a bump in sales when its new model comes out, just like Apple.

Yesterday, comScore released data saying Apple had 39.2% of the U.S. smartphone market for the three month average ending in April, its highest share yet. It also said Apple had more share of the market than Samsung.

The difference between comScore and Canaccord is that comScore measures what's in people's pockets. Canaccord measures what people were buying last month. As a result, comScore is more backward looking, whereas Canaccord is more forward looking.

Here's a table that looks at the best selling smartphones in the U.S. over the last four months.

This table gives us reason to be skeptical about Walkley's report. He doesn't include the iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S in the February sales at AT&T. Based on comments from AT&T and Apple, it seems like those phones were top sellers. Their absence is suspicious.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/samsungs-s4-helps-it-beat-apple-in-us-sales-2013-6

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