Samsung's Galaxy S III Steals Smartphone Crown From iPhone 348
zacharye writes "The best-selling smartphone in the world is no longer an iPhone. New data released on Thursday by market research firm Strategy Analytics finds that Samsung's Galaxy S III was the world's top-selling smartphone model in the third quarter this year, displacing Apple's iPhone for the first time in years. Samsung announced earlier this week that cumulative Galaxy S III channel sales reached the 30 million unit milestone and according to Strategy Analytics, 18 million of those were shipped in Q3 2012. During the same period, Apple shipped an estimated 16.2 million iPhone 4S handsets, slipping into the No.2 spot for the quarter..." Also at Slash Cloud.
Purse Phone (Score:1, Interesting)
Around my work we call these "purse phones", because they're too fraking huge to comfortably fit in a pocket. Other than that, I think this is pretty well-deserved. They are amazing phones and make the iPhone look pretty darn crappy by comparison.
Maybe there are a lot of people who wear oversized pants or are just fatties.... I donno... I like this phone's concept, but wouldn't want to carry it around.
Re:The Galaxy S III is nice, but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I just bought one on T-Mobile - most amazing piece of technology I've ever owned. Absolutely stunning.
At first I was worried that the whole Pen thing would be a useless gimmick, but I use the damn thing all the time. For jotting down quick notes, it's actually as usable as carrying around a paper notebook, which has always been the bar I've measured these things against.
In all the technology I've owned over the years, PDA's, tablets, smartphones etc... they've never given me the ability to do away with paper/pencil notebook. This actually has, which is fantastic.
Re:Purse Phone (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree about the size. I own the Galaxy S2 Touch and look forward to upgrading. In terms of size my phone is roughly comparable to the S3. I've never been uncomforartable with the phone in my pocket. Now the Note on the other hand is pretty friggin huge, but it sells so people must like it.
I agree with you regarding the iPhone being pretty crappy, especially the 5. I hate typing on the tiny screen on one of my kid's iTouch screens. The iPhone 5's slightly larger screen is still small compared to most smart phones.
The Iphone 5 is just more of the same-old from Apple. Slightly better specs under the hood, but not a lot for the average user to get excited about. Where's the innovation?
Apple is becoming a follower instead of a leader.
Re:iPhone 4s? (Score:3, Interesting)
Add a little over 5 million. So 21.2M vs. the GS3's 18M.
4th quarter sales will be whatever number they can build. Considering that they are selling every one they make, their "market share" is as high as it could possibly be.
That said, I've been buying AAPL puts (the right to sell at a given price) this week, as none of this matters in the short run.
It will take Apple some time to gets its production run rates up to where it has a chance to meet demand. In the mean time that's putting an upper bound on sales.
On a side note, many people dismiss Apple as just a "marketing" company, and yet Samsung will spend a whopping $11B on advertising this year, while Apple will spend a whopping $11B on machinery and production equipment.
Re:But iPhone 5? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but this is yet another data point along with Android-overtaking-iOS timeline. First it was all Android phones outselling iPhones for a quarter. Then it was all Android phones overtaking iPhones in market share, but the iPhone massively outselling any single Android phone. Now one Android phone outsold the iPhone for one quarter, if only for the worst iPhone quarter, but I'm expecting it to become more of a regular occurrence in the future.
Although a lot of people will be dismissing these numbers as irrelevant outside of fanboi dick-measuring, they do matter. The Android phone app ecosystem was far behind the iOS phone ecosystem until the Android marketshare started too large for it to be ignored, and now they are effectively equivalent. However, when it comes to physical phone accessories, iPhones are massively more supported then any Android phone (at least as far as I can tell from personal observation). Once certain Android phones start selling in numbers comperable to iPhones, the accessory support will follow.
Also, now that Google has started focusing on tablets, I'm expecting a similar pattern on those in the future.
Re:Why is the comparision made against the iPhone (Score:2, Interesting)
The iPhone 4 (no 's') is also on sale over that time period. I wonder if that might also be part of the numbers - iPhone sales were split between several models, including upcoming models. (Though the fact that an Android phone was right up there is still news.)
Re:Shipments != sales (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems likely that Samsung dumped a bunch into the channel during the transition quarter so they could get an analyst to write this story and get some positive press.
Re:Samsung is better than Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
That's why. :p
According to the article:
However, the Galaxy S3’s position as the world’s best-selling smartphone model is likely to be short-lived. The Apple iPhone 5 has gotten off to a solid start already with an estimated 6.0 million units shipped globally during Q3 2012. We expect the new iPhone 5 to out-ship Samsung’s Galaxy S3 in the coming fourth quarter of 2012 and Apple should soon reclaim the title of the world’s most popular smartphone model
So I guess at that point they won't be better.
What would make this analysis more interesting would be to compare units sold, not just shipped.
Re:Samsung is better than Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why is the comparision made against the iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
I have all the iPhones except the iPhone 5. When IOS6 came out and I realised that not only did it have nothing I wanted, it also took away something I did. So I was never going to upgrade and decided now was the time to try the Galaxy SIII
I have had it about two months now and I have to say I had NO IDEA that IOS was so far behind. I have been genuinely shocked that Samsung and Google have been quietly putting so many great little features into the OS and I knew nothing about it. IOS is still pretty much in the same place it started from.
I loved my iPhones but Ill never go back.