Apple overtook Samsung in the fourth quarter as the largest smartphone producer in a declining global market for handsets, research firm IDC said Friday.

A survey by IDC showed Apple -- which reported its quarterly data Thursday -- led all vendors with 77.3 million iPhones sold, giving it a 19.2 percent market share.

Even though Apple's fourth-quarter unit sales were down 1.3 percent from a year earlier, it was able to move ahead of South Korea's Samsung, whose 74.1 million devices sold gave it a market share of 18.4 percent, IDC said.

Huawei held the number three position with a 10.2 percent market share, followed by fellow Chinese makers Xiaomi and Oppo, with 7.0 and 6.8 percent, respectively, according to IDC.

Overall smartphone sales were down 6.3 percent with 403.5 million handsets shipped, according to the survey.

IDC said the data showed consumers appeared in no rush to upgrade to the most expensive flagship smartphones from Apple and Samsung.

"The latest flock of posh flagships may have had consumers hitting the pause button in the holiday quarter," said Anthony Scarsella, an IDC research manager.

Scarsella said these high-end devices "proved to be more of a luxury than a necessity among upgraders."

IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani said that as the top brands expanded their offerings, "brands outside the top five struggled to maintain momentum."

Samsung, which reported a 4.4 percent decline in the fourth quarter, remained the top smartphone vendor for the full year with a 21.6 percent market share, to Apple's 14.7 percent, IDC said.

Overall smartphone sales for 2017 were virtually flat -- down 0.1 percent at 1.47 billion units, the report said.

Huawei's share for 2017 was 10.4 percent, followed by Oppo (7.6 percent) and Xiaomi (6.3 percent), IDC said.

Huawei has been seeking to grow its market share but faced a recent setback by failing to strike deals with US carriers, following concerns voiced in Washington over the Chinese maker's ties to the Beijing government.

A separate survey from Strategy Analytics found similar market share for smartphone vendors but found a nine percent drop in fourth-quarter sales, described as the largest decline in the smartphone era.

"The shrinkage in global smartphone shipments was caused by a collapse in the huge China market, where demand fell 16 percent annually due to longer replacement rates, fewer operator subsidies and a general lack of wow models," said Linda Sui of Strategy Analytics.

EU to probe Apple plan to buy music app Shazam
Brussels (AFP) Feb 6, 2018 - The European Union said on Tuesday it will probe tech giant Apple's plan to buy leading song recognition app Shazam because of fears the deal may "adversely affect competition."

Apple announced the deal with London-based Shazam, worth a reported $400 million, in December in a fresh bid to secure an edge in the intensifying battle of streaming services.

The European Commission said it launched the inquiry at the request of EU states Austria, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden, and non-EU Norway and Iceland, which form part of the affiliated European Economic Area.

"The commission considers that the transaction may have a signficant adverse effect on competition in the European Economic Area," it said in a statement.

The deal did not meet the "turnover thresholds" for the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm and anti-trust enforcer -- for Brussels to launch a probe by itself.

Instead it had to wait for Austria to lodge an initial request, which was followed by the other states.

Shazam, which was founded in 1999 in the early age of online music, has offered a solution to a longtime agony of listeners -- putting a name to elusive songs. With a click, the app identifies tracks playing on the radio, at parties or as background music.

But Shazam has struggled to find a way to make money off its technology, even as it said that it had reached one billion downloads on smartphones last year.

Shazam only recently announced it had become profitable, thanks to advertising and steering traffic to other sites such as Spotify and Apple Music.

The technology is also no longer quite as novel, with Shazam facing rivals such as SoundHound and with smartphones capable of ever more advanced recognition functions.

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