Apple breaks smartphone sales record in Q4

Apple broke its own sales and financial records and bested the financial performances of technology companies throughout history, but also smashed the record for the most smartphones shipped globally in a single quarter by a single vendor, according to a study by Canalys. The 37 million iPhones shipped in fourth quarter beat the previous record of 28.3 million devices shipped by Nokia in fourth quarter 2010. The huge volume of iPhones also exceeded the size of the entire market of four years ago, when a total of 35.5 million smartphones shipped globally. Apple's quarterly revenue hit USD 46.3 billion, profit came in at USD 13.1 billion, and gross margin reached 44.7 percent, which was above Apple's guidance. The company ended the quarter with USD 97.6 billion in cash. Samsung Electronics announced a 13 percent year-on-year increase in revenues to KRW 47.3 trillion and a 76 percent increase in operating profit to KRW 5.3 trillion. The telecommunications division, which includes its mobile phone and tablet business, also achieved record earnings and profits. Samsung revealed quarterly growth in smartphones of around 30 percent. The vendor also said that its mobile phone shipments increased by more than 10 percent. The smartphone figures include devices shipped under the Google and T-Mobile brands. Nokia posted a slight annual decline in its mobile phone volumes at 93.9 million units in the quarter. Nokia shipped 19.6 million smartphones, which was substantially down on fourth quarter 2010. Nokia's revenues fell 21 percent from EUR 12.7 billion a year ago to EUR 10.0 billion in fourth quarter 2011, and it suffered a EUR 1.1 billion net loss.