Samsung phone business hammered on two fronts
Samsung barely held on to its lead in the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter as Apple (AAPL) grabbed share in high-end phones and Chinese vendors took share in low-cost phones, market research firm IDC said Thursday. South Korea-based Samsung ended Q4 with 20.01% of the global smartphone market by unit shipments. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple was second with 19.85%, thanks to the popularity of its iPhone 6 series handsets, which launched in late September. One year earlier, in Q4 2013, Samsung had 28.83% market share to Apple’s 17.43%, IDC reported. Samsung’s worldwide smartphone shipments fell 11% year-over-year to 75.1 million units last quarter. Apple’s (AAPL) shipments jumped 46% to 74.5 million units. Total smartphone shipments rose 28.2% to 375.2 million units in the December quarter. For the year, smartphone shipments climbed 27.6% to 1.3 billion units, IDC said. Samsung’s high-end smartphone business was hurt last quarter by Apple’s iPhone 6…