SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Samsung lost the battle of the big phones last quarter as Apple’s copycat large iPhone lured buyers in the crucial Chinese market.
The South Korean company said Thursday its profit sank last quarter, with an improvement in its semiconductor business insufficient to mask its mobile problems.
It was in China, the world’s largest market for smartphones, where Samsung’s dramatic decline was most evident.
Samsung accounted for nearly one third of global smartphone sales in 2013, twice as much as Apple. This year, it has dropped to about one quarter.
Apple Inc. was behind Samsung’s latest reversal in fortune, launching iPhones with bigger screens that robbed Samsung’s Galaxy phones of a key selling point. The company was already battling competition in low-end phones from upstart manufacturers such as China’s Xiaomi.