Samsung is back on top

Samsung has dethroned Apple as the top smartphone seller... again

4/15/24 11:51AM

Hold the phone

Samsung has reclaimed its position as the world's largest smartphone seller, dethroning Apple in the first quarter of 2024. Preliminary data from research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) revealed that Samsung shipped a market-leading 60 million units, some 20% more than Apple during the same period.

Although Samsung's return to the top spot is not entirely surprising — iPhone sales historically peak in the fourth quarter, and the two smartphone giants constantly tussle for #1 — what is noteworthy is the nearly 10% year-over-year decline in Apple's sales, as demand for its products in China falls. By contrast, Samsung sales were flat, and overall smartphone shipments grew 8%.

Samsung only has a small foothold in the Chinese market, while Apple was a major player in the region last year, boasting over 17% market share. And, like in so many other sectors, Chinese consumers are increasingly opting for a “Made in China” option, with Apple facing intense competition in the nation from rivals Transsion and Xiaomi, both of which reported strong double-digit growth in the most recent quarter. With fewer groundbreaking new features in recent releases, consumers are also holding onto their devices for longer.

Apple has been working hard to diversify away from the iPhone, but the product remains the primary gateway into the Apple ecosystem and its infamous walled garden — and the slump in sales comes at a tough time. The recently launched Vision Pro headset is struggling to gain traction, and the company faces a DOJ lawsuit over the iPhone's alleged monopolistic power. All told, the company’s shares have lagged the wider market (S&P 500) by 13% this year.

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While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

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Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5