Samsung’s aggressive marketing campaigns seem to have borne fruit, as recent statistics reveal that the Galaxy SII overtook iPhone to become the most popular smartphone in the third quarter. Samsung managed to ship out 18 million units of its flagship phone, when compared to 16.2 million units of Apple’s iPhone 4S. The phone also managed to garner 11% of the overall market share – taking it to the top spot.
While this may be news to cheer for Samsung, analysts predict that the company’s joy could be burst soon by the iPhone 5. One of the reasons why the third quarter saw fewer sales of the iPhone 4S could be because consumers were waiting for Apple to launch the iPhone 5. And now that iPhone 5 finally hit the markets in mid-September, it has already managed to become the third most popular smartphone in the world, in such a short time.
Even as the two rivals fight it out in the legal space, Samsung’s Galaxy line of devices definitely looks like it has stormed the market. Even its newly released Galaxy Note II has managed sales of 3 million units in a little over a month’s time. On the legal side of the war between these two companies, Apple recently filed more infringement suits against Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet and also its OS, Google’s Android 4.1 or the Jelly Bean. The trial for this case is set to happen in 2014.
Samsung announced that it sold 56.3 million smartphones, making it the world’s largest handset maket, while Apple managed to sell 26.9 million iPhones in the corresponding period including 5 million iPhone 5 units within the first weekend of its release. However, Apple is finding it difficult to keep up with the demand for its popular smartphone, in part due to the major supplier to the company. Apple CEO, Tim Cook, is positive that the company is well prepared to meet the demands for the fourth quarter.
