Apple closing in on record quarter on strength of iPhone 6

Apple Inc. is riding high these days, recently surpassing a $700 billion market capitalization, which makes it the most valuable company in the world by market cap. As this blog reported last week, experts believe that the good news will keep coming, and that Apple could reach the $1 trillion mark with strong holiday sales. For now, the company has achieved another record with its total quarterly sales.

According to market research firm Kantar Worldpanel, the success of the iPhone 6 has had a noticeable effect on the global smartphone market share. Apple made gains in nine of the 10 regions that Kantar studied for sales data in the three months ending in October compared to the same period in 2013. The biggest increase was in the United Kingdom, where Apple sales jumped by 10.4 percentage points.

Other significant increases were observed in Australia and in the average of the five largest European Union markets: Germany, France, the U.K., Italy and Spain. In the U.S., the jump was more modest, but this country is second only to Japan in iPhone market share at 41.5 percent.

"Apple has experienced a huge jump in sales share across almost all major markets thanks to the launch of the iPhone 6," wrote Kantar strategic insight director Dominic Sunnebo. "Most of these sales were driven by loyal Apple users. Some 86 percent of British buyers upgraded from an older iPhone model, only 5 percent switched across from Samsung."

The numbers show that users have been satisfied with Apple's new products over the past few months. Apple support services are available for businesses that want to make sure they get the best possible functionality when they make the jump to the latest upgrades.