Samsung has announced that it has sold over 100 million smartphones belonging to the flagship Samsung Galaxy S series. The combined figure of 100 million sales for the Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Galaxy S II and Samsung Galaxy S III surpassed 100 million units yesterday according to a Samsung press release today.
The figures are all the more impressive because they don’t include all any of the plethora of budget and mid range Samsung Galaxy smartphones such as the Galaxy Mini, Galaxy Ace or Galaxy Y. Samsung has enjoyed a string of record results (for five quarters in a row) probably helped by the fact that more expensive products usually provide a manufacturer with higher margins. This is especially the case with Apple products as Phil Schiller commented; Apple owns just 20 per cent of the smartphone market but due to its premium margins “owns 75 percent of the profit”.
Here’s a breakdown of the Galaxy S series figures:
- The Galaxy S, launched in May 2010, reached over 24 million global channel shipments.
- The Galaxy S II, launched in April 2011, reached around 40 million shipments.
- The Galaxy S III, launched in May 2012, has now surpassed 40 million unit channel sales.
Channel sales are sales to retailers rather than end customers so some of the above stock may still remain somewhere in warehouses unsold. However it must be good for Samsung to see that each successive new Galaxy S outsells the previous generation, how long can it keep up with that record?
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus
Samsung, with its very wide range of Galaxy devices, doesn’t seem to fear the cannibalisation of its own market the way Apple does. It demonstrates this, not just with the cheaper mid range and budget smartphones but also a few days ago it announced the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus. The Galaxy S II Plus mainly offers, in enhancements over the venerable S II, updated software and NFC options. Pricing and availability are yet to be revealed.
Samsung Galaxy S IV
Looking to the future the guys at Anandtech think they have a good idea about what the Samsung Galaxy S IV screen will be like. It seems like a 4.99-inch diagonal 1080p AMOLED display will front the Galaxy S IV which is to be launched in Q1 this year. It might even have a bit of a curve to it...
