Galaxy S III Nabs 'Best Selling Smartphone' From iPhone 4S

By Jane McEntegart
published

Galaxy SIII named best-selling smartphone in the world.

Apple has been fighting tooth and nail to take out Samsung's Galaxy line of products, so no doubt the Cupertino-based company won't be too pleased to hear that the Galaxy S III has taken the most popular smartphone title from the iPhone 4S. According to Research firm Strategy Analytics, the Galaxy S III was the most popular smartphone in Q3 2012.

Strategy Analytics reports that Samsung's Galaxy S III shipped 18 million units worldwide during the third quarter and accounted for 10.7 percent of all smartphones shipped globally. Apple's iPhone 4S shipped 16.2 million units worldwide. This is compared to 19.4 million units in the previous quarter. Samsung shipped just 5.4 million Galaxy S III devices in the second quarter. Apple's iPhone 5, which just became available towards the end of the quarter, shipped 6 million units.

While 18 million Galaxy S IIIs is no small feat, it's important to remember that the Galaxy S III launched during the summer and is more popular than ever. The iPhone 4S, on the other hand, was launched in October of 2011 and so is considerably older. Additionally, the iPhone 4S saw its shipments impacted by the launch of the iPhone 5 in September.

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Jane McEntegart
20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • boyabunda
    Not by Zak Islam! Watta surprise!
    Reply
  • wilem_WAR246810
    boyabundaNot by Zak Islam! Watta surprise!

    it'll probably hurt him in the inside if he posts this
    Reply
  • rpmrush
    The camera on the S3 is horrendous. Compare it to the Lumia 920 or iphone 5..uhh...I do like the extended battery for it tho. My bro has it and it's amazing. 4000mah and 16 bux and looks like it came that way..not an afterthought.
    Reply
  • rpmrush
    Majority of the people I know have S3's come to think of it. I have a GNex and am a huge fan of HTC phones. They are built so much better than Samsung's. Touch Wiz is such crap. HTC sense at least doesn't mess with the ergonomics..it just adds some graphical spice on top of ICS. Still a fan of custom launchers tho. And what's the big whoop about JB. I understood the urgency to jump from 2.3 to 4.0 cuz ICS is pretty sweet, but I've run JB since July..it's a minor update. Google Now is meh..the notifications are improved, but not enough for all the whining about not getting it over ICS.
    Reply
  • wilem_WAR246810
    rpmrushMajority of the people I know have S3's come to think of it. I have a GNex and am a huge fan of HTC phones. They are built so much better than Samsung's. Touch Wiz is such crap. HTC sense at least doesn't mess with the ergonomics..it just adds some graphical spice on top of ICS. Still a fan of custom launchers tho. And what's the big whoop about JB. I understood the urgency to jump from 2.3 to 4.0 cuz ICS is pretty sweet, but I've run JB since July..it's a minor update. Google Now is meh..the notifications are improved, but not enough for all the whining about not getting it over ICS.
    I don't really consider the project butter, offline voice dictation and Expandable notifications to be minor
    Reply
  • wemakeourfuture
    lostmyclando you want a phone our a camera? I have this in mind too. i want the 908 pureview but here cost 586 dollar. i can get a nikon semi-pro and a lumia 710 por that price.
    A lot of people use their smartphone as their primary camera on a day-to-day basis so they value having a leading edge smartphone camera, ie. if I'm paying premium money for a flagship device I expect it to have as good or better camera than the others in its class. Comparing a 920 (just out) and iPhone 5 (end of September) to something that was release in June is unfair.

    The 920 is being released close to 6 months after the S3, it should have a better camera.

    But the consumer reality is now all 3 products are released so a new purchaser who values camera quality highly may not choose an S3, but its done amazingly well and will continue to sell tens of million until the S4 is released.
    Reply
  • sa1nt
    Apple created the market Samsung created the product...
    Reply
  • rpmrush
    I want both! The technology is there..the Iphone has had a great camera forever. I'm in the Android camp so I'm stuck with really crappy sensors with worse software. Sine Nokia put a decent camera in, hopefully it will push others on the Android side to work to compete. I DO consider project utter and anything voice related to be useless. My phone is just as responsive and at times unresponsive on ICS or JB. No difference. The expandable notifications I will give credit to. They are useful, but not enough for everyone to be so butt hurt over being 'stuck' on ICS. ICS is great. Enjoy it. JB is ICS with better notifications AND WTF is 4.2 not being renamed. 4.2 Jellybean? Really Google? 4.1.4 would have been more appropriate.
    Reply
  • kawininjazx
    I think the camera is pretty good in my S3, way better than the Droid X camera it replaced.
    Reply
  • cknobman
    rpmrushThe camera on the S3 is horrendous. Compare it to the Lumia 920 or iphone 5..uhh...I do like the extended battery for it tho. My bro has it and it's amazing. 4000mah and 16 bux and looks like it came that way..not an afterthought.
    What are you basing that claim on? While its not the best phone camera on the market is by no means horrendous. We use our GSIII camera all the time and it takes great pictures. I used it to take some pictures of my home theater setup in really low lighting to show some problems with my TV. The pictures were plenty good enough to show all the detail needed to see the problem with my TV picture.
    In fact I have not found any situations where the pictures it takes are unacceptable.

    The GSIII camera blows away my HTC Evo and Evo design cameras.
    Reply