Apple's iPhone outsold Samsung's flagship Galaxy S3 smartphone not once but twice in the run-up to Christmas, according to analysts.
Strategy Analytics reported yesterday that both the iPhone 5 and its predecessor, the 4S, outsold Samsung’s latest Galaxy smartphone globally in the fourth quarter of 2012, giving Apple a worldwide 20.6 per cent share of the smartphone market.
Yet the iPhone’s main manufacturing partner, Foxconn, this week instituted a hiring freeze. Despite Foxconn’s official denials, multiple people familiar with the company have told the Financial Times that its staffing changes reflects a scaling back of its manufacturing of the iPhone 5, amid slowing demand for the five-month-old device. Apple declined to comment.