Stefan Mileschin

More figures are proving to a shell shocked Apple loving press that the overly hyped iPhone is slowly dying and is set to fall behind Microsoft.

According to Canalys, the excessive growth which has characterised Apple sales in the smartphone sector has slowed and the outfit only had 19 percent of the market.

The Age put this market share figure in perspective when it pointed out that Apple is now one point ahead of the much maligned Microsoft.

The winner right now is Android, which continues to dominate the mobile market, making up nearly 60 percent of those shipments. It is worth pointing out here that since Microsoft has patent trolled Android to bits, it makes $8 out of each phone sold, so it is winning here too.

Samsung was the top manufacturer, growing its volume by 64 percent year-on-year. After Samsung and Apple, manufacturers Huawei, LG and ZTE rounded out the top five - but they all make up less than five percent of the market share.

A quick look at the fruity Apple zealots in the press shows a complete lack of understanding about how Cupertino, in the space of a year, not only dropped the ball, but gift wrapped it and gave it to its rivals.

While some claim that this would not be happening if Steve Jobs were alive, saner appeals suggest that Apple is just too terrified to modify Jobs' vision. Pete Cunningham, Canalys' principal analyst, said that Apple is not making better phones than HTC or Samsung.

He said that the iPhone user interface is now six years old and badly in need of a refresh. Apple has also ignored the trend for larger displays in premium smart phones.

Apple cannot say that the market is saturated either. Global shipments for notebooks, tablets and smartphones reached 308.7 million in the first quarter of 2013, up more than 37 percent in the same quarter from the year before.

Canalys figures show that tablets are the fastest growing among the three markets, climbing 106 percent year-over-year to 41.9 million units.

Apple is still the leader in the tablet market with a 46 percent share, but holds nowhere near the same level of dominance it once enjoyed.

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