In the last quarter of 2014, Apple and Samsung tied in sales of smartphones, with 74 million each. As Apple's fortunes rise in China, however, Samsung is losing ground to both Apple and cheaper competitors.

Global smartphone sales rose at an annual rate of 31 percent to a record 380 million last quarter, from October through December 2014. According to Linda Sui of Strategy Analytics, "Global smartphone shipments grew 31 percent annually from 290.2 million units in Q4 2013 to a record 380.1 million in Q4 2014. An impressive 1.3 billion smartphones were shipped worldwide in 2014, with very strong growth seen last year in emerging markets such as China, India and Africa."

According to analysts, Apple and Samsung each sold the same amount of smartphones, 74.5 million. The two leading smartphone maker's fortunes are going in different directions, however, as Apple rose from an 18 percent market share in the fourth quarter of 2013 to a record 20 percent in 2014. Samsung, on the other hand, dropped precipitously, from 30 percent in 2013 to 20 percent in 2014. Samsung's sales and profit dipped largely due to increased competition in China, along with Apples entry into the worldwide phablet market with the introduction of the iPhone 6 Plus in September.

Analyst Ben Bajaran of research firm Creative Strategies concluded Samsung is experiencing market share erosion at both ends of the market in China. Samsung is "sort of being eaten from the bottom up by regional players' including Huawei and Xiaomi", says Bajaran. "And now with Apple being competitive in larger phones, you're seeing Samsung losing any edge they had at the high end."

Samsung hopes to reverse its fortunes with the introduction of the Galaxy S6, its newest flagship smartphone. Rumored to have a curved screen with an edged display similar to the limited edition Galaxy Note Edge phablet released in late 2014, the company hopes to counter the mediocre response to the Galaxy S5, which was criticized as having a cheap build and not being enough of an improvement over its predecessor, the S4. It is expected that the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will be introduced in March at World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.