Samsung says its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone has been selling at rate of 200,000 a day, pushing sales of the company’s Galaxy line of smartphones past the 100 million mark. The Korean conglomerate says it has sold more than 40 million Galaxy S IIIs into its sales channels, and that the Galaxy S II has also passed the 40 million mark. The first Galaxy S smartphone has recorded sales of 24 million units to the channels since its launch in June 2010.
In comparison, Apple has sold an estimated 300 million iPhones since the device was launched in 2007, not counting the all-important holiday selling season. (Those sales numbers have not yet been reported.) The most recent report on market share from Strategy Analytics found that Samsung had roughly 35% of the smartphone market and Apple had 17% in the third quarter. Again, those numbers do not include the impact of the iPhone 5 during the fourth quarter of 2012.
According to Paul Carton of 451 Research’s ChangeWave, Samsung’s Galaxy S III is still generating a lot of interest from consumers. “Considering the Galaxy S III has been out for several months we’d normally expect a slowdown by now – but it’s still red hot,” said Carton. “We’re also seeing strong interest in Samsung’s large-screen phone – the Galaxy Note II. Super-sized smart phones are taking the industry by storm in 2013.”
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Samsung of course was ordered to pay Apple a billion dollar fine this summer after a California court found that the Korean company had infringed on some of Apple’s design patents in creating its mobile devices. But with those devices helping the company post billions of dollars in profit each quarter, the billion dollar verdict for Apple may end up looking like a bargain for Samsung.
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