Channel Beat: Smartphone Shipments Soar In Q3

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IDC had good news for the smartphone market this week. The research firm said shipments grew 6.8 percent in the third quarter, marking the second highest shipment levels ever in a single quarter.

Apple and Samsung's new phones boosted shipment numbers, with Samsung leading the market. Samsung held 23.8 percent market share and saw 6.1 percent growth from this time last year. Apple saw 22 percent growth from this time last year and holds 13.5 percent of the market.

Distributor Ingram Micro's earnings showed improvement from last quarter, as the company returned to profitability in its third quarter.

The distributor's sales were down more than 6 percent from the same quarter last year, but its operating margin was up 1 percent from this time last year. Executives said cloud business continues to grow and the company's shift toward higher-value services is moving numbers in the right direction. During the last quarter Ingram Micro reported a $34.3 million loss.

IBM is considering a $2 billion acquisition of the Weather Co., according to The Wall Street Journal.

The deal would focus on weather data collected by the company to broaden IBM's Watson ecosystem, but it's unlikely to include the Weather Channel. Weather Co. and IBM already have a partnership that brings together weather data and forecast information and IBM's cloud computing capabilities.

PUBLISHED OCT. 30, 2015