Even when Samsung gets it right Apple still kicks its butt

Samsung's Q3 2015 results appeared to indicate that the company was growing again and coming out of a two-year-long slump.

The recovery was well under way, the numbers appeared to show, as revenues rose about $4 billion to $45.6 billion. The company cited "significant" increases in demand for the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge smartphones.

Could it be that these new phones - which have received universally good reviews - are finally stemming the onslaught from Apple's iPhone 6? Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to have become obsessed with "Android switchers" over the last year. Maybe he was worried that Samsung was threatening future iPhone growth?

Unfortunately not, as these charts - and job cuts of 30% of Samsung's entire staff - show.

Here's a look at what is going on courtesy of Jackdaw Research.

The bottom line: Apple's new strategy of taking incremental market share from Android appears to be working.

First the big picture. Revenues are up for the entire company, which is bouncing back after an awful 2014:

But in 2014, it became obvious that Apple would launch a phablet-sized iPhone 6 later that year. That hurt sales at Samsung, as people held off buying new Galaxy and Note models while they waited to see what Apple would deliver. The new iPhone 6 crushed Samsung when it launched.

You can see the decline in this chart:

There are some signs that in recent quarters phone sales may have stabilised. Samsung actually shipped more phones in Q3 than the year prior. But compare the increase in Samsung shipments (4.6 million phones) to the increase in Apple shipments (8.7 million), according to Strategy Analytics.

Apple's greater increase comes off a smaller base, too:

And that is why Samsung is losing market share, even though it is shipping more phones. Apple is simply getting to new customers faster than Samsung is right now.