Samsung Electronics was neck-and-neck with Apple in the fourth quarter race for first place in the white-hot smartphone market. Estimates based on Samsung’s fourth quarter earnings report put the company’s smartphone sales at 36.1 million, just below Apple’s 37 million reported earlier this week. Samsung said sales of mobile phones increased “about 30%” in the fourth quarter. (Based on Reuters’ estimate of 27.8 million Samsung smartphones sold in the third quarter, fourth quarter smartphone sales would be 36.1 million units, but the company did not give a specific number.)
For all of 2011, Samsung says sales were $146.5 billion, making it the biggest company in Korea by a wide margin. Operating profit was $14.4 billion, down slightly from 2010 due primarily to a higher cost of goods sold in 2011.
Samsung also captured the number one spot in smartphone sales for 2011 as a whole. “Samsung advanced in 2011 because of its strategy of offering a complete line of smartphone products, spanning a variety of price points, features and operating systems,” said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS iSuppli. “This enabled Samsung to move past perennial market leader Nokia and to slightly exceed Apple’s total for the year.”
Samsung says sales in its mobile business grew 19% from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, and that total mobile sales were $15.2 billion in the fourth quarter. The company says a better product mix led to a higher average selling price for its phones, a sharp contrast to rival Nokia’s news earlier in the day that average sales prices for its phones declined in the fourth quarter.
Telecom products accounted for just under 38% of Samsung’s total 4th quarter sales, but raked in 50% of profits. Operating margins for the telecom segment increased to 14.8%, up from 12.6% in the year ago quarter. Samsung’s other major business units are display panels, television sets, and semiconductors, a business in which Samsung counts Apple as a major customer.
Samsung summarized the results for its semiconductor business by saying that PC-related demand was weak while mobile/server-related demand remained solid. Overall, sales for this unit were $8.14 billion in the fourth quarter, down 1% from the year ago quarter. Full year semiconductor sales were off 2% from 2010.
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