For those with poor memories, Apple was running its Apple iPhone 3GS. Blackberry was in trouble but not dead in the water.

Figures from Strategy Analytics suggest that the mobile phone market has only grown by 10 per cent since last year. A belief touted by Apple, that everything might be saved by selling phones in China are hopeless.

The analyst said that there was "increasing penetration maturity in major markets of the US, Europe and China". In other words, everyone in these markets who wants one already has a smartphone.

What is also important is that customers no longer feel the need to upgrade every year.

The report said that Samsung is still cleaning Apple’s clock. Samsung is currently holding 23.7 per cent of the global smartphone market. The company has managed to sell 83.8 million handsets since the beginning of July, which is almost twice as much as Apple.

The fruity cargo cult flogged 48 million iPhone handsets in the same period, and currently holds 13.6 per cent of the global market share. Of course, its margins were considerably higher.
Samsung sold six per cent ore devices than in Q2 this year, while Apple managed to hit a 36 per cent year-on-year increase (although at this time last year Apple was not selling into China).

Huawei is still the third-placed company, and has managed to sell 26.7 million smartphones in the third quarter of this year, while it holds 7.5 per cent of the global market share. Lenovo is behind Huawei, the company has sold 18.8 million devices, while Xiaomi is right below Lenovo with 17.8 million sold handsets.