With the Smartphone market maturing Samsung and HTC have both had a tough time in the last quarter of 2013.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25633375

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01..._profit_beats/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25618121

All three links discuss a fall in profits, not sales. Do you post misleading titles on purpose?

HTC are really taking a battering - wonder if they will get swallowed up by someone?

Being able to read the articles wasn't your strong point

HTC

The company's global share of the smartphone market declined to 2.2% in the third quarter of 2013,

Samsung

"Apple did launch its new phones during the quarter and early estimates indicate that they may have had a record quarter for iPhone sales.

"That may also have taken some consumers away from Samsung and hurt its revenue and profits," he added.

But a fall in share doesn't necessarily equate to a fall in sales - viz Apple

No revenue figures are quoted. They wrote "may", a nice word to cover yourself with you have to write an article but don't have the facts.

HTC's sales are failing in general. Samsung's sales are just due to the S4 coming to the end of its life cycle.

If this is true which I'm not sure if it is or not. It it sort of understandable. Phones are reaching a plateau at moment where unless someone breaks it no longer needs to upgrade every 12 months or so. I know I used to upgrade often but honestly I can't see myself getting a new phone at all this year. I will certainly be looking at the iPhone 6 and top models but I don't think differences between last year's models and this year's models are going be a huge difference.

Well not quite, Smartphone sales are set to grow across all markets worldwide.

From 1,000m units worldwide in 2013 to 1,200m units in 2014 all the way up to 1,700m units in 2017. The Chinese market is set to grow from 430m units shipped in 2013 to 615m units shipped in 2014.

So sales are projected to increase in the smartphone segment.

Interesting I wonder how many people these days are still regularly changing there phones. Can see why more and more people are getting them they are getting more and more useful.