Apple has tied with Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor for the first time since Q4 2011.

Apple shipped 74.5 million smartphones worldwide and captured a 19.6 per cent market share in Q4 2014, increasing from 17.6 per cent a year earlier, while Samsung grabbed the same share – falling from 29.6 per cent in Q4 2013.

The report also said that global smartphone shipments grew 31 per cent annually to reach a record 380 million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, with strong growth seen in emerging markets such as China, India and Africa.

Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, has attributed Apple’s success partly to the fact that “the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models are proving wildly popular in China, United States and Europe.”

The iPhone 6 has also enabled Apple to expand its smartphone market share significantly in Japan and South Korea.

Earlier this week, Apple reported the largest net profit ever for a public company in the three months to December.

As for Samsung, it “remained the number one smartphone player globally on a full-year basis in 2014 but continues to face intense competition from Apple at the higher-end of the smartphone market, from Huawei in the middle-tiers, and from Xiaomi and others at the entry-level,” according to Mawston.

“It may soon have to consider taking over rivals, such as Blackberry, in order to revitalise growth this year,” he added.

In fact, Samsung recently denied a report that it is in takeover talks with BlackBerry in a deal estimated at $7.5 billion.

Global smartphone vendor shipments and marketshare in Q4 2014 (click to enlarge)

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Number three position went to Lenovo, which officially merged with Motorola to capture a 6.5 per cent global smartphone market share while Huawei shipped 24.1 million smartphones for a 6.3 percent share and came in fourth.

Woody Oh, director at Strategy Analytics, believes that “Lenovo is hoping to leverage Motorola’s famous brand to drive global scale this year and to offset some of Lenovo’s recently weakening smartphone growth at home in China.”

“Huawei is expanding rapidly online in China and through retailers across Africa, enabling it to become an emerging powerhouse in developing markets,” he added.

The company recently stated that its dual-brand Huawei/Honor strategy has been “highly successful, creating synergies which have resulted in raising brand awareness and market share of the Huawei Consumer BG as a whole”.