Apple iPhone 5s beats out Samsung Galaxy S4 in sales during October

A report from Counterpoint Research surveyed smartphone sales in 33 countries from both distributors and retailers during the month of October. The smartphone on top of the list? None other than the new full-featured Apple iPhone 5s. Somewhat of a surprise, the Apple iPhone 5 was next. You might be asking yourself how this is possible since Apple no longer offers the device. The answer is that it is still available at some third party retailers.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is next, followed by the candy-coated Apple iPhone 5c. Samsung takes the next three spots with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the Samsung Galaxy S III and surprisingly, the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini. The Galaxy S III is free on contract at a number of carriers.

Next on the list is the Series 30 powered Nokia 105. Rounding out the top ten is the Samsung Galaxy S III mini and the Nokia Asha 501. You might notice that there are no HTC models in the top ten and the list has nothing from LG. The Chinese upstarts are also absent from the list. While Apple and Samsung pretty much monopolized the survey, Counterpoint said that the Nokia Lumia 520 "drove the Windows Phone momentum across prepaid markets of Europe, US, and Asia during October." That is really not much of a surprise considering how strong sales of the entry-level Windows Phone 8 model have been.
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A second study of sales in China showed that Samsung had a leading 18% of the Chinese smartphone market in October followed by the 14% belonging to Lenovo. Apple's market share in the country more than doubled from August and is now at 12%. Coolpad and Huawei and neck and neck for fourth and fifth place in their own country.