Apple has surpassed Samsung to become the top mobile-phone maker in the U.S. for the first time, scoring a victory in the companies' battle for global dominance of the mobile-device market.
According to this morning's Bloomberg report, Apple sold 17.7 million mobile phones in the U.S. during the fourth quarter, a 38 percent jump from a year earlier. That gave Apple 34 percent of the market, topping Samsung, which sold 16.8 million handsets for a 32 percent market share. Total shipments grew 4 percent in the quarter to 52 million phones.
Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics in London, stated that "Apple's success has been driven by its popular ecosystem of iPhones and App Store, extensive marketing around the new iPhone 5 model and generous carrier subsidies." The latter is notable sore point with Apple's competition of late.
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