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Samsung's Galaxy S III Steals Smartphone Crown From iPhone
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.
That's why. :p
then surely the HTC is the Queen, primarily because it got f****d.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Is the iPhone 4S outselling the iPhone 5 for some reason? Why is the current Samsung model being compared against Apple's last year model? I'm confused.
I read the internet for the articles.
While I'm sure the apple maps thing didn't help, the SIII just seems more sleek and modern. I've had a few android phones and they've always seemed like "almost but not quite" compared to Apple. In this latest round, head to head with the IPhone5 you can't really make an argument based on interface, design, screen size, speed, app quality, etc. Its all there, and I can't help but feel like Apple got complacent. Android has seen revolutionary upgrades to its OS, IOS hasn't taken the big leaps and now they're paying for it.
The iPhone 5 will absolutely CRUSH in Q4. Not a hater. I'm one of the GS3's in that Q3 number. I was about to buy the iPhone 5 but then Amazon was selling the GS3 for $99 and got my attention. That was that.
...there are better phones, IMHO. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy Note II - gorgeous 5" super-AMOLED display, powerful hardware (CPU+RAM) and stylus input - perfection.
There's even a docking station to connect it to keyboard, mouse and monitor. It's just the kind of phone that keeps a nerd happy.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
How did the GSIII fare against the iPhone 4s plus the iPhone 5 numbers? Seems to me to be a more fair comparison....
grnbrg.
this message was brought to you by the small hands brigade.
Becasue Q3 2012 is the last completed set of data available.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
These are third quarter sales. If I'm not mistaken the iPhone 5 was a fourth quarter release.
I hope that was a humorous remark regarding the vast discrepancy between your user id and jandrese's. The alternative is just too ridiculous.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
From the fine article:
"Samsungs' time at the top will be short-lived however, as Apple's iPhone 5 is expected to regain the title to top-selling smartphone in the December quarter."
The iPhone never was the best selling phone "in the WORLD". Only in the US. Worldwide the iPhone's market share is laughable.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Steve! Still dead Steve? Take that! You good old Android-Crusher zealot.
Burn, karma burn! Let thy fumes rise to heaven. Like from sweet smelling incense. Let us drink and be merry.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
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.
...Just how many of those people who bought the "iPhone 4S" knew that it wasn't a genuine Samsung Galaxy but were only fooled by its similar design?
HTC did the same thing with the One X. If I understand it correctly, it had something to do with the Tegra 3 chipset not being compatible with LTE radios or something like that. I personally tracked down an International HTC One X. Cost me the same as a non-contract US HTC One X but I got twice the internal storage, quad core cpu, and a gpu that's at least as fast as the one in the US HTC One X.
And no, I don't miss LTE support. HSPA+ works just fine for me.
Because the iPhone 4S is (was, actually) the current best selling phone by total (cumulative) numbers.In that sense, it's 100% fair to compare the two phones that sold the most units in the history of smartphones.
Maybe the iPhone will outsell the Galaxy S III, time will tell.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Which also explains why the numbers are lower for apple. The Galaxy S3 was released in June, if I remember correctly. They had the entire quarter for sales of their new crown jewel. With the iPhone 5 rumored to be coming, everybody was waiting for October and NOBODY was buying a 4S in Q3!
From the court case, we saw that Samsung lies about how many it has "shipped". Colour me unimpressed.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Kinda hard to shill a free product.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
I can understand why some people don't want to get an iPhone, but to see comments about how Android will somehow take over and get the most market share is frightening.
The last thing we need is yet another OS monopoly. I'd be happy to see 33% Android users, 33% iPhone users, 16% Blackberry users and 16% WebOS users.
Or is the majority of posters so young that they didn't live through or at least read about how OS monopolies are bad?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Dear Apple,
I am a huge fan that has been left underwhelmed recently. Here's what you need to do to turn things around:
1. You need to offer more selection of "new" iPhones. I want to be able to choose from different new models, new colours, and new price points. You let me do this with iPods ... even iPads now ... so why is there only ever "one" new iPhone???
2. iOS6. When I got my iPhone 5 I upgraded from iOS3. And to my surprise not much has changed. Many things got worse somehow - feeling clunky with lots of bloat. Siri is useless, Maps took a wrong turn, the Interface hasn't changed at all and the Settings Menu is really unorganized compared to OSX System Prefs for instance.
3. The screen size. You should have made it proportionally larger. So do that next time. Otherwise most Apps run smaller, Videos look smaller, Photos look smaller. Everything actually looks smaller on the bigger screen.
(to everyone saying then it wouldn't fit in your hand - take a look at the iPad Mini photos which is massive compared to the iPhone and still fits in one hand).
4. Laptop pricing. I used to be able to get a 13" MacBook for about $1000.
Now the only laptop under $1000 is 11" (way too small for everyday business use) and everything else is overpriced. I don't mind paying more for Apple products because I do believe the experience is better - however your laptop pricing is ridiculous these days. I am in teh market for a new laptop and I don't understand why they are so much more expensive now?
5. OSX ... I love it. But it's starting to feel like you are losing focus on that too. Launchpad is umm... blah. F12 widgets whatever that is I never use (what's with all these hidden secondary desktops??). The App Store on OSX feels half-baked. Moving the Software Update into the App store makes things harder to use. Overall a bit of a fail the past few releases.
6. iPad Mini, should have been retina. iPod is retina, iPhone is retina, new iPad is retina, MacBooks are moving to Retina ... wtf?
Anyhow get more iPhone selection, fix the laptop pricing, and refocus your OS's ... and things will be good again.
Thanks!
So, if you compare all models of Android to all models of iPhone, people say it's unfair because "Apple has a single model", and if you compare a single model of Android to a single model of iPhone, it's unfair because "Apple has more than one model"? Interesting.
Samsung has worked hard and they deserve a congrats. I do own an iPhone, but unlike some people I don't see Samsung's success a threat. I like competition, so this should make everyone push harder. Though I doubt RIM or Nokia will last much longer. HTC and Google/Motorola will hopefully push harder to beat Samsung. I hope this encourages Apple to push harder too. Though honestly, I doubt HTC, Motorola, Apple, Nokia, and Rim need us to tell them to push harder.
He's saying he "feels for no one," because that's who fits his description.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Despite all the bickering and indignant attitude, most, if not all, fail to see the obvious. This is MacOS v. Windows again. MacOS was first to market (1984 vs 1985) and had all the goodies that the "cool kids" wanted. Microsoft came out with Windows and it was a pale imitation of the Mac System, but it ran on anybody's hardware. Apple derided Microsoft for their crappy junk. After a few iterations, Windows became the clear winner just because every hardware maker could and did bundle it on their PC for a lot less money than Apple wanted.
Google has taken a page from the Microsoft play book. Android is already way bigger than IOS. IOS market share is dropping even while raw sales are expanding. Android has parity in usability and features. The top Android phone has sales parity with the top Apple phone. The Android ecosystem is just going to expand.
As long as Apple earns massive margins on their product, more and more competitors will enter the market. This will reduce prices and steal more of Apple's customers. Many Android phone's have quality equivalent to the iPhone, and sometimes are in different ways better. Microsoft is now entering the market as a serious competitor. Apple knows this and they are pissing in their boots, They are lashing out the only way they know: litigation; just like before. They may have "invented" the smartphone or pioneered the market, but they are doomed by sheer numbers of competitors. They know it. Unless Apple can pull the next "big thing" out of their asses, they will fall back again. And Jobs won't be around to save them next time.
Care to tell me where I can get my hands on one of these free Galaxy S IIIs you speak of? Everywhere I have looked they cost quite a bit.
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.
... during the quarter in which Apple had announced that the iPhone 5 was coming soon, so people held off buying the iPhone 4S. In fact, if you add the iPhone 5 sales to the iPhone 4S sales for the quarter, the result tops the Galaxy S III by 4 million.
What ideas implemented by iPhone would you say were original?
Android marketshare was 75% of worldwide sales last quarter, compared to 15% for iOS. This time last year the numbers were 58% for Android and 14% for iOS.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57544131-94/android-beats-ios-5-to-1-in-q3-smartphone-market-share/
As reported:
Samsung Galaxy S3 — 18.0 million units
Apple iPhone 4S — 16.2 million units
Apple iPhone 5 — 6.0 million units
Now let's look at it in an actually meaningful way:
Apple iPhone 4S & 5 — 22.2 million units
Samsung Galaxy S3 — 18.0 million units
Source: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20121108005702/en/Strategy-Analytics-Samsung-Galaxy-S3-Worlds-Best-Selling
Not even close. Samsung doubled up Apple last quarter, 56 million phones to 27 million.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20121025007003/en/Smartphones-Drive-Quarter-Growth-Worldwide-Mobile-Phone
It is true that the article mentions the iPhone 5 sold 6 million units, but you claimed that that the actual comparison includes iPhone 5 sales and it doesn't. Just to be clear, they compared the 16 million iPhone 4S units sold to 18 million GS3 units sold when making the statement that the GS3 outsold the iPhone 4S. They could have compared the iPhone 5's 6 million units sold, but most thinking people would realize that's not a fair comparison because it was only on sale for a small part of Q3.
The iPhone 5 went on sale on September 21st. That means it was on sale for 10 days during Q3. Most, sane, people would realize that selling 6 million phones in 10 days is pretty impressive. You think it means it was a "big dud" so what does that say about you?
The accusation was of being "Linux Shills". Last I checked it was free.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
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.
Your parent was clearly in a hurry
(S)He meant ROFLYSST
So you're saying the iPhone has NFC file transfer? Where's your SD card slot? How about a standard micro USB connector instead of the Apple proprietary plugs? Apple's much vaunted "retina display" is 1,136 x 640 and lower resolution than the Galaxy S3's 1,280 x 720 resolution. iPhone requires you to install iTunes to access your phone from your PC (and screw you, Linux users). Samsung, like all android phones, just plugs in and acts as a USB drive. Or you can wireless tether to your PC with an Android. The iPhone 5's camera is 8mp and has ugly purple flair problems, G S3 is also 8mp and features image stabilization. G S3 has longer battery life than the iPhone 5. Where the iPhone's stylus pen? How about showing me some sweet widgets or desktop mods on you iPhone? Let's see you install 3rd party apps without rooting your phone.
You think this is just about screen size? You're not paying attention.
iPhone 5 comes with:
* Apple Maps and access to Google Maps, with a large number of options for other map apps (that can can be downloaded), both free and paid.
You're using Apple Maps as a selling feature? Meanwhile, Androids come with Google Maps out of the box, as well as Google Navigation, which supports voice instructions, and there are a similarly large number of other map/navigation apps available for Android.
While your point is that IOS can hold its own against Android, it's a bit silly to use Apple Maps as the first point of comparison....
* Uses a USB charger, charges off anything with a USB port (note that USB is not proprietary), and a micro-USB adapter is also available so you can charge it off a Galaxy SIII charger if you really want.
USB isn't proprietary, but the connector at the other end of the cable is. If your cable is damaged or lost, you need to buy a replacement cable from Apple, and pay for the privilege. If you lose or damage the cable for any Android phone I've ever used, you can use *any* MicroUSB cable from any other device you own, or can buy one very cheaply from any number of people selling them.
* Doesn't have removable memory card, no, but this has allegedly been a missing "killer feature" from every iOS device ever sold, and doesn't seem to be slowing down sales.
Some Android phones don't have removable memory cards. Mine does. It's very useful. I've used the same MicroSD card across 3 phones now, and have not needed to recopy the data to each new phone. Similarly, I haven't lost any of the settings or high scores from my games/apps, and several of my games have installed completely to the SD card, so they don't need to be reinstalled/downloaded on a new phone, either.
* No USB Mass Storage Mode either, but files can be moved on and off it as necessary, also supports cloud storage (iCloud, Dropbox etc).
Call me next time you need to sync 32GB of data through iCloud to your new phone. We'll compare how long it takes against how long it takes me to remove my MicroSD card and put it in the new phone, shall we? We'll also compare how much that costs on your 3G data plan....
Oh, did I mention my phone didn't cost anywhere near what a new iPhone would cost without a contract, and that the memory/cpu for my phone are almost identical to the iPhone 4S, which was the best iPhone available when I bought mine?
Edit: Bah, looks like I messed up the quotes. My text is indented.
iPhone 5 comes with:
* Apple Maps and access to Google Maps, with a large number of options for other map apps (that can can be downloaded), both free and paid.
You're using Apple Maps as a selling feature? Meanwhile, Androids come with Google Maps out of the box, as well as Google Navigation, which supports voice instructions, and there are a similarly large number of other map/navigation apps available for Android.
While your point is that IOS can hold its own against Android, it's a bit silly to use Apple Maps as the first point of comparison....
Absolutely. For the 99.5% of times when it's not "epically failing" (and being corrected), it works very well. The whole "zomg look how bad it is, you'll end up in a lake!" stuff is amusing, but ultimately overblown. And, as I pointed out right after it, I noted that Google Maps is also available on iOS 6, along with many other apps to choose from if you think Apple Maps will "epically fail". For the majority of people, however, it is
* Uses a USB charger, charges off anything with a USB port (note that USB is not proprietary), and a micro-USB adapter is also available so you can charge it off a Galaxy SIII charger if you really want.
USB isn't proprietary, but the connector at the other end of the cable is. If your cable is damaged or lost, you need to buy a replacement cable from Apple, and pay for the privilege. If you lose or damage the cable for any Android phone I've ever used, you can use *any* MicroUSB cable from any other device you own, or can buy one very cheaply from any number of people selling them.
I didn't address the Lightning connector (or the previous incarnation, the 30 pin dock connector), merely that the GP said that Apple's charger was proprietary and that (I quote) "not compatible with any other brand", when it's obvious to anyone who has actually used an iPhone that it will charge off all sorts of third party branded chargers, and that you can charge other phones and devices off an Apple charger if you like since it has a USB port on it. It's no accident that the "non-phone" end of the cable is a USB plug, and that the cord is removable from the charger.
* Doesn't have removable memory card, no, but this has allegedly been a missing "killer feature" from every iOS device ever sold, and doesn't seem to be slowing down sales.
Some Android phones don't have removable memory cards. Mine does. It's very useful. I've used the same MicroSD card across 3 phones now, and have not needed to recopy the data to each new phone. Similarly, I haven't lost any of the settings or high scores from my games/apps, and several of my games have installed completely to the SD card, so they don't need to be reinstalled/downloaded on a new phone, either.
Yes, I mentioned that this is one of the few genuine differences, and that for some people a removable SD card is a killer feature. It simply bears repeating that the supposed "killer feature" is clearly not all that important to the vast majority of iPhone users. Personally I think it is more of missing killer feature on the iPad, where extra removable storage would be very welcome for the sorts of things it is used for - movies and games on the go.
* No USB Mass Storage Mode either, but files can be moved on and off it as necessary, also supports cloud storage (iCloud, Dropbox etc).
Call me next time you need to sync 32GB of data through iCloud to your new phone. We'll compare how long it takes against how long it takes me to remove my MicroSD card and put it in the new phone, shall we? We'll also compare how much that costs on your 3G data plan....
Oh, di
You're half correct.
The GP said nothing about USB mass storage. To the average user when you plug in a GS3, even in MTP mode, it still acts as a USB drive.
The lack of linux support for MTP is a failing of linux, not a failing of the device. Have a read about why Google changed it, and it makes sense.
It is not a major fail. The major fail was that you had to have 2 partitions on your phone so that one of them could be unmounted in order to use USB mass storage. You therefore couldn't access any files on the phone's internal SD card while it was mounted on a PC.
It was a technical decision. The world has moved on. Linux is just a little late catching up.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.