Samsung Galaxy S III dethrones iPhone 4S as smartphone sales champ for Q3 2012

http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/08/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-dethrones-iphone-4s/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

by Felix21 • 14 years ago

19 17 14 years ago

engadget.com

geetee• 14 years ago

Pointless article. Galaxy S III outsold the iPhone 4S because the iPhone 5 came out.

andreiursan• 14 years ago

exactly my thought, wondering why it made first page on HN.

omnisci• 14 years ago

because who doesn't like to start their morning with a little Iphone Vs. Android fight?

nitrogen• 14 years ago

It's still interesting that the Galaxy S III outsold any other single smartphone. Sure, it's because there were two iPhones competing for sales, but it's still significant.

skc• 14 years ago

Wait a second, is there any reason why the SIII (or any other phone for that matter) shouldn't be able to outsell the iPhone 5?

dan1234• 14 years ago

Typically the iPhone sells the most because the whole iOS ecosystem is limited to a few devices. With android there are so many options to chose from that one brand rarely outsells its Apple counterpart even though Android as a whole has a far greater marketshare.

The S3 outselling the iPhone 5 would be a pretty big deal.

simonh2• 14 years ago

A slightly more accurate headline: "Flagship Android phone beats year old iPhone in sales in the same quarter the newest iPhone was released".

If you add iPhone 5 sales for that quarter to the iPhone 4s sales you get 24 million, 6 million more than for the S III. You have to look at this data with extremely narrowly focused, Android tinted lenses to make this look like any kind of victory for Samsung.

It does show that at last a flagship Android phone is managing to sell in iPhone-like numbers. That's a good thing for Android and for the health of competition in the smartphone market. Samsung are doing well.

mtgx• 14 years ago

It's even more impressive considering how hard it is to beat all the other Android phones with similar specs in the market, too. The switch from one specific Android phone to another is so much easier than from an iPhone to an Android phone. In this regard Apple has much less direct competition.

So when one phone reaches iPhone-level numbers, despite the fact that you could easily replace it with another similar specced Android phone, it makes it all the more impressive.

That being said, as an Android user, I don't really like this outcome. The fact that one Android manufacturer is getting close to Apple's sales numbers is pretty meaningless to me, and the fact that one Android manufacturer can sell 50% of Android phones is actually pretty worrisome. I'd rather have 5 top manufacturers with 15% or so market share each. Apple users may be fine with an "Apple monopoly" in the iOS market, but I'm not fine with a Samsung monopoly in the Android market.

But I guess it's all about the Pareto principle and other power laws like that, so it may be just a fact of life. At least it might be a lot easier to change who is the biggest Android company a few years down the road, if Samsung slips.

elxx• 14 years ago

How is that headline more accurate? The original one clearly states the facts, that the S3 had more sales than the 4S in this quarter, making it the best selling piece of hardware. And the article itself says that this was probably because of the iPhone 5 release.

I don't understand why you're so quick to defend Apple by changing the metric, despite nobody saying that this is any sort of "victory" for Samsung. It's an obvious result of the iPhone 5 release, it will be on top of the charts the next quarter as usual. If you're going to make it an iPhone vs. Android thing then you should compare the sales of all iPhones and all Android phones, you can't pick and choose a few from each category.

fireflash383• 14 years ago

The article only states that it's the best selling phone in this quarter. If you're going to add in current and last gen phones, why not do the same for Android? (It probably won't change the numbers all that much, but the point remains).

jakobe• 14 years ago

The article forgot to mention that the Galaxy S III also outsold the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS!

fireflash383• 14 years ago

Neither of those were top sellers last quarter.

kayoone• 14 years ago

Even if the iPhone4S sales were canabalized by the upcoming iPhone5, its still a major achievement for a single Android phone to come close to the iPhone sales numbers, which is basically one of the most hyped/popular consumer electronic device of all time.

spiralpolitik• 14 years ago

While the Galaxy S III is doing very well for Samsung, once again the article makes the mistake of comparing "shipped" numbers verses "sold" numbers.

Given that those have been wildly inaccurate in the past (see the evidence in the Apple Samsung trial) it somewhat undermines the point of the article and the title itself.

simonh2• 14 years ago

Alright, time to burn some Karma because this isn't realy on topic. It's provoked by a few of the comments on the Engadget page. Easy come, easy go.

It seems like the new iPhone that comes out each year being lighter, thinner, faster with a sharper, brighter screen and better build quality and better software than the previous phone, and every other phone on the planet isn't enough. It's boring. There's a sentiment out there that Apple has to do something radically, magically new that delights us with childlike wonder every year on a consistent production line schedule. If they don't, they're a washed up hasbeen that has betrayed Steve Jobs' legacy.

And no, bringing out devices that are lighter, thinner, faster, etc, etc is not radically new. It's what they did last year, and the year before that, ad nauseam. What did they do for is this month, that nobody has ever done before, is all that counts. Don't give us better. Better is next door to mediocre and only a few steps away from bad. So better might as well be bad. We demand magical!

I honestly don't think I'm straw-manning here. Is that not what the "iPhone 5 is boring" brigade mean? I honestly don't know what to say to that. It's kind of hard to comprehend that grown adults can think about things that way. It mainly seems to affect Apple users too, people who have bought Apple products. It's as though they're disappointed and upset that what they got was only an excellent, high quality product.

Note: I'm not saying Apple haven't made missteps. The iOS 6 release with mapping issues and various other niggles has shown that they're not perfect, but then when were they ever? They've always had their fair share of awkward updates and failed products.

fireflash383• 14 years ago

I believe the major reasons why people were saying "iPhone 5 is boring" is because the iPhone didn't do anything that other manufacturers weren't already doing. iPhone 5 doesn't compete/exist only with other Apple products - it competes with Android and W7. When you tout your latest phone as 'revolutionary' and it's only adding features that have been on other phones for months already, you're gonna get backlash.

MatthewPhillips• 14 years ago

For me personally, the iPhone 5 isn't an option because it has, what I consider to be, big gapping holes that make it unenjoyable for me to use. That I don't own the data I put into apps is a real problem for me. Apple hates the file metaphor but they haven't replaced it with anything else. Apparently they don't see it as a problem, but I do. Another huge problem for me is that if I add a website to the home screen it refreshes every time I open it. This is not the case for tabs in Safari. Just these 2 things is enough for me to keep a 4S for testing but otherwise not using an iPhone as a my daily driver. If these aren't a problem for you then you have nothing to worry about and shouldn't get defensive; the iPhone is just a piece of electronics that you use to get things done, it doesn't need to have its honor defended.

Samsung Galaxy S III dethrones iPhone 4S as smartphone sales champ for Q3 2012

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