Well, that didn’t last long. In the last quarter, Samsung Electronics bypassed Apple to become the world’s top smartphone vendor, Bloomberg reports. Apple held the top spot for only one quarter after displacing Nokia earlier this year. Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the last quarter -- or 23.8% of the market -- according to Milton Keynes, U.K.- based Strategy Analytics. Meanwhile, Apple’s 17.1 million shipments represented 14.6% of the market.
What’s Samsung’s secret? “Samsung’s rise has been driven by a blend of elegant hardware designs, popular Android services, memorable sub-brands and extensive global distribution,” Strategy Analytics wrote. Additionally, “Samsung has come out with products that appeal to all the different form factors and specifications out there,” T.Z. Wong, a Beijing-based analyst at researcher IDC, tells Bloomberg. “That is a strategy they have executed very well.” Samsung’s success also bodes well for Google as its Android mobile operating system powers the manufacturers Galaxy smartphones and tablet computers.