Samsung: Galaxy S III sales hit 20 million in 100 days
Summary: 10 million Galaxy S III smartphones sold in one month isn't bad, but 20 million in just over three months is even better.
Samsung said its global sales of the recently-released Galaxy S III smartphone have hit the 20 million mark in just over three months.
The long-awaited smartphone's roll out to the masses was initially hampered by delays and supply chain issues. It launched in Europe on May 29, but was only brought to the U.S. market in mid-June after major carriers held back on selling what few devices it had due to "manufacturer supply constraints."
But Samsung averted the crisis and managed to reach its 10 million sales in July target set by Samsung mobile business president J.K. Shin, thanks to strong demand in Europe.
The phone's launch was strategically timed to get a headstart on rival firms' own announcements, notably Nokia, Motorola, and Apple's next-generation iPhone, due to be announced in San Francisco on September 12.
(By comparison: Apple is expected to sell between 6 to 10 million iPhone 5 smartphones sold reach by the end of the first week of its launch, pegged for mid-to-late September.)
Earlier this week, analysts said that they believed September was "the first month since the iPhone 4S launched in October 2011 that it was not the top-selling smartphone in the U.S. market," with Apple surrendering the U.S. top-selling smartphone crown to Samsung.
The Galaxy S III, dubbed as your BYOD next-best friend, it features a thin and light shell, a high-definition AMOLED display, 4G networking, and Google's Android 4.0 'Ice Cream Sandwich.'
In July, Samsung announced it was partnering with security firm AuthenTec to bring the firm's virtual private networking (VPN) technology to its range of Galaxy devices. By integrating AuthenTec's QuickSec VPN client technology, Galaxy smartphones users will have secure access to corporate networks to internal documents, features and applications on the go.
Less than a fortnight later, Apple snapped up AuthenTec, a designer of fingerprint sensors and identity management hardware, for $356 million.
Image credit: CNET.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Two ways to match S3 sales
If Samsung copied, punish them -- but make the punishment fit the crime. The death penalty for jaywalking seems excessive.
death penalty?
Absolutely.
As for saying America is a rich country.
No it isn't. That's like saying the man with a trillion dollars of debt is a rich man.
Apple is suing Samsung all over the world
The US government may have a lot of debt, but US consumers still spend a lot of money on high end devices like Galaxy S3 and the iPhone4s. I'm pretty sure neither company wants to loose access to any market with doubt digit revenue for their products.
Err.. New math?
No.. actually, it's worse.
10M / 1 month = 10M per month
20M / 3 months = 6.67M per month...
(Which is why words like 'good', 'better', 'worse', 'bad', 'best' etc shouldn't be used without some kind of qualifier...)
You fail to understand the economics involved...
If the subsequent sales figures had dropped off dramatically from the initial figures, then, the product could be considered a "one hit wonder" and basically, a failure. But, the follow-up figures are almost never equal or even close to equal the initial period of sales. 20 million S3s sold in 3 months is an amazing feat, and a winner in anybody's books. If the subsequent figures continue dropping, as could be expected, but the total sales exceed all expectations after a reasonable amount of time, then, yes, 20 million in 3 months is fantastic, and perhaps 40 million in six months could be considered even more amazing. Remember that, staying power is more important than the initial sales figures, for anything. Economics deals more with the long-term returns.