Apple's all-conquering iPhone has for the first time overtaken Nokia to take the biggest share of global mobile internet usage, one of a recent string of findings that show the ubiquitous handset continues pummelling the competition despite fierce competition and recent reports of its demise.
Apple nabbed 25.86 percent of global mobile internet usage in January 2013, beating out Samsung's 22.69 percent and Nokia's third-place slide to 22.15 percent. Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, the web-analytics company behind the numbers, said that this was "good and bad news" for Apple -- at this point last year, Apple had over 28 percent of mobile internet usage and Nokia had over 37 percent. Nokia's share plummeted, Apple's dropped a small amount, and Samsung's increased dramatically from its 15 percent share in January 2012.
Although the threat of Samsung as a competitor is very real, Apple still took 70 percent of profits in the handset industry in Q4 of this past year. Despite actually leading in smartphone sales globally, Samsung raked in only 25 percent of profits, according to CounterPoint Research's findings.
Apple did still lead smartphone sales in the U.S. over Q4, though. NPD found Phone 4 sales increased 79 percent and 4S sales grew 43 percent, while the iPhone 5 made up 43 percent of all iPhone sales over the three-month period from October through December. The five top-selling smartphones in the U.S. for the period were the iPhone 5, Galaxy S III, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and Galaxy S II.
