Apple has reportedly passed Samsung as the global mobile leader, according to IT research firm Gartner.

This follows excellent 2014 sales of over 74 million iPhone units in one quarter. Samsung sales actually dropped 37 percent year-on-year.

It will be the first time since 2012 that Apple held first place in the mobile market.

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The introduction of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus managed to invigorate the market in China and other Southeast Asian countries, while the Galaxy S5 failed to hit over 20 million sales throughout the year.

Samsung had similar issues in the low-end market where Chinese firm Xiaomi took most of its profit in China and Micromax took most of its profit in India. The U.S. and Europe were also cold towards Samsung in 2014.

In terms of features, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus came with Touch ID and a new size but not much else changed. It seems that just having the smartphone available in Asia was enough to make it sell like crazy, and the new sizes were an incentive to pick up the device.

Apple is a really a hard company to compete against since it doesn't need to hit a homerun on features for the iPhone to sell like crazy. It just needs to be available in the market.

Samsung has tried its hardest this year to combat the craze for Apple with the launch of the Galaxy S6. The new smartphone sports a dual-glass design with a metal frame on the side and is one of the first to feature a 14 nanometer processor.

The big question is can the Galaxy S6 end Samsung's sales issues, or will Apple win the market once again in 2015 with the launch of the iPhone 6S, 6S Plus and reported 6S Mini.

Tagsmobile market