#001: Apple edges out Samsung for mobile phone sales lead in fourth quarter [Apple supera Sansung por pequena margem nas vendas de celulares no quarto semestre]

Apple Inc became the top mobile phone seller [a maior vendedora de celulares] for the first time in the lucrative U.S. market [pela primeira vez no mercado lucrativo dos Estados Unidos] during the fourth quarter of 2012 [durante o quarto semestre de 2012], outshining arch rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd [superando com grande margem a arquiconcorrente Samsung Electronics Co Ltd], a report by Strategy Analytics showed.

Apple's share of the U.S. mobile phone market [a participação da Apple no mercado americano de celulares], including feature phones and smartphones [incluindo telefones típicos e smartphones], jumped to 34 percent from 26 percent, while Samsung's share grew to 32.3 percent from 31.8 percent [enquanto a participação da Sansung cresceu para 32.3 por cento de 31.8 por cento], the research firm said.
Samsung had been the top mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, the firm said. Indeed, for the full year, Samsung still held the crown for [manteve a liderança com] mobile phone sales; it had a 31.8 percent share of the U.S. market in 2012, against Apple's 26.2 percent.

Apple investors have recently been anxious about the future growth prospects for the company amid intense competition from Samsung's cheaper phones [Investidores da Apple estiveram recentemente ansiosos em relação às perspectivas de futuro crescimento para a companhia em meio a competição intensa de telefones mais baratos da Samsung], powered by Google's Android software [movidos pelo software Android do Google], and signs the premium smartphone market may be close to saturation in developed markets [e sinaliza que o mercado de smartphones de maior valor pode estar perto da saturação no mercado desenvolvido].

Overall [em geral], mobile phone shipments rose [embarques de carga de celulares cresceram] 4 percent to 52 million units in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 2012, driven by strong demand for [conduzidos por demanda grande de] 4G smartphones and 3G feature phones.

But in all of 2012, U.S. mobile phone shipments fell 11 percent to 166.9 million, Strategy Analytics said.
Apple sold 17.7 million iPhones in the U.S. in the fourth quarter, up 38 percent from the previous year, driven by aggressive marketing of its new iPhone 5 and steep carrier subsidies [subsídios de portadora mais seletivos], the firm said. Samsung shipped 16.8 million phones during the same period.

In the international arena [na cena internacional], Samsung Electronics, with a range of handsets [com uma gama de aparelhos], has overtaken Apple as the world's top smartphone seller [ultrapassou Apple como a maior vendedora de smartphones do mundo].

Link original: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-pips-samsung-mobile-phone-sales-lead-fourth-191952374--finance.html