NEW DELHI: Tech giant Apple has toppled Korean electronics' major Samsung to become the numero uno player in the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2016, shipping 78.3 million iPhones, according to research firm Counterpoint. "Apple had a record quarter shipping 78.3 million iPhones in all important holiday season, surpassing Samsung (78 million) in overall smartphone market share ," it said.Apple had a market share of 17.8 per cent, while Samsung had 17.7 per cent share in the October-December 2016 quarter. Oppo and vivo followed in the tally with market share of 10.2 per cent, 6.9 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively.For the whole 2016 year, Samsung, however, continued to led the smartphone market with a market share of 21 per cent. "2016 was the inflection point for LTE as a technology as it scaled down to lower price points (sub-USD 75). LTE adoption was much faster compared to any other previous cellular technologies as the total LTE smartphone demand crossed a billion units in 2016," Counterpoint Research Associate Director Tarun Pathak said.

Source: Economic Times February 01, 2017 06:22 UTC