Samsung Galaxy S III Estimated to Top iPhone 4S in 3Q 2012 Worldwide Shipments

So what?

There are a lot of different factors to keep in mind when presented with this sort of a news story.

It's just one phone! It didn't beat Apple if you add the 4S and the i5 together, because then you get over 23 million, which still beats Samsung.

The iPhone was ready for a refresh! So of course the newest competitor gets its moment in the sun. Everybody was holding off on getting a new iPhone because a newer iPhone was right around the corner. Sales of the iPhone always go down in the quarter before the new model. So Samsung can sell a few more of its newest than Apple can sell a year-old phone? So what? That is not even very impressive anyways.

None of this really matters because Samsung never really reports sales. What you are seeing is a "shipped" number, which means that any proportion of them could be sitting in random warehouses all over the globe. Samsung never reports the real number of real phones sold to real people. What they report as shipped is really is some kind of an accounting trick to inflate the real numbers. Just look how few of these supposed buyers use the internet with their devices! Apple kills at that so where are all of these supposed buyers?


/sarcasm

MacRumors said:

Apple observers will of course be quick to note that the iPhone 4S saw waning sales during the third quarter leading into and following the launch of the iPhone 5, while the Galaxy S III is still riding relatively high as Samsung's flagship Android device since its launch in May of this year. Strategy Analytics also estimates that Samsung's position at the top will be short-lived, with the iPhone 5 expected to take back the crown for the current quarter.Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley had

Click to expand...

And I raise the report with this one.. So Samsung is expecting S3 sales to be around 12M in 4Q and S4 will roll out early next year (late 1Q, early 2Q). Samsung has a different business model than Iphone, they roll out a lot of models and keep refreshing the model hoping the newness of the phone will attract upgrade sales. So it is best to compare the high end sales of S2, S3, Note and Note 2 to Iphone through a 12 months period.

Apple rollout iphone once a year and March to Sept sales tend to drop a lot. This will particularly severe given Tim Cook's fast roll out strategy for Iphone 5 (100 countries in 4Q). Don't know what Apple has on their sleeve for March to Sept 2013, but my hope is that they can refresh Iphone faster than once a year.. Right now analyst projection is about 39m iphone for Q4 (and estimate was up to 60M before foxconn production problem hit the fence).

http://www.booksnreview.com/articles/1061/20120915/galaxy-siii-sales-top-30m-year-samsung-note-2.htm

After all of the hoopla surrounding the iPhone 5's official debut this week, Samsung has announced that it expects sales of its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone to exceed 30 million units by the end of 2012.

.......

Samsung also has lofty sales goals for its Android device the Galaxy Note II note-quite-a-phone-note-quite-a-tablet "phablet." Jong-kyun said the company expects sales of the Galaxy Note II to be more than double that of the original Galaxy Note, which has sold more than 10 million units.

Nathan20 said:

SHIPMENTS not sales...

Click to expand...

do you know why shipments are made?

I agree. But that would really only matter if the SIII replaced the Note II.

Im not saying apple sells the most phone by any means. But that beating something because its replacement comes out is not really the same.

Samsung's numbers among androids is the real indicator of how amazing they are.

iekozz said:

But if you add the Note II sales to the GSIII sales you get higher sales.

Click to expand...

chagla said:

right because retailers seem to love stockpiling units of unsold S3 on their shelves.

it's probably a strange fetish.

Click to expand...

Maybe you don't understand how it works. When a new phone is released, manufacturers build up a channel inventory that consists of phones that have been shipped but not sold. Apple generally maintains an iPhone inventory of 4-8 weeks.

In the last quarter, Samsung increased the channel inventory of S3's as they ramped up their manufacturing. This means that they sold less than they shipped. Apple, on the other hand, was decreasing their channel inventory of the iPhone 4S in preparation for the launch of the iPhone 5. That means they sold more iPhone 4S's than they shipped.

So, the claim that the S3 was the best selling smartphone based on these shipping estimates is unsupported at best.

At least the Galaxy SIII customers may actually be able to find someone to "tap and share" with!

IMHO, most of the erosion is not being felt by Apple, but by the other manufactures.... Nokia, Blackberry, etc.... Apple and Samsung are the top 2 vendors out there for smart phones and both are grabbing their share.

The smart phone market is huge and there's room for several to play and be successful.

noverflow said:

So...
But if you add the iPhone 5 + the 4s, you get higher sales.

So the iPhone shipments are still higher.
Basically all this shows is that people stopped buying the 4s after the 5 was announced.

Not very interesting at all.

Click to expand...

Yes, and if you add SGS II Sales + Galaxy Nexus + the SGS III, the iPhone 5 sales all of a sudden aren't very interesting at all anymore, either.

chagla said:

right because retailers seem to love stockpiling units of unsold S3 on their shelves.

it's probably a strange fetish.

Click to expand...

Um...do you know anything about retail? Retailers can return unsold quantities.

That's why no analyst worth their weight goes on SHIPPED units.

iekozz said:

But if you add the Note II sales to the GSIII sales you get higher sales.

Click to expand...

16.2M iP4S + 6.0M iP5 = 22.2M iPhones

18M GS3 + 3M NoteII (as of Nov. 2) = 21M Galaxy devices

EDIT: I realize we could go on and on adding all of the Samsung phones - though these are the two newest of each company's lines.

jrswizzle said:

The numbers I find interesting are the GS3's Q2 shipments vs. the iP5's Q3 numbers....

The GS3 was on the market for about 1 month (May 29 - June 30) of Q2 and sold/shipped 5.4 million units.

The iP5 was on the market for just over 1 week (September 21 - September 30) of Q3 and sold/shipped 6.0 million units.

Click to expand...

Apple launches are much bigger events. There's greater public awareness of them, and of their release cycles, and (combined with a probably more loyal customer base) a bigger surge in sales follows each new release.

The launch of a new Samsung Galaxy phone doesn't have nearly the same visibility in the general news media.

kis said:

Yes, and if you add SGS II Sales + Galaxy Nexus + the SGS III, the iPhone 5 sales all of a sudden aren't very interesting at all anymore, either.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

Not sure why people are adding in the iPhone 5 to their argument.....


The S3 came out in May.... Its an iPhone 4s competitor

Credit where credit is due. The Samsung Galaxy S3 and it's advertising clearly offer something consumers want.

As much as I love iOS, it's in need of aesthetic revamp, because currently its a little flat. iOS 5 at least brought Siri to the table. iOS 6 has brought Maps (to public derision) and lost YouTube (to public derision) and has passbook which is just about useless anywhere in the world other than the 3 stores in the USA using it.

I much prefer the iPhone 5 over my HTC one X, but that doesn't mean I can't see that iOS is in good need of a robust update / overhaul.

EmpireITtech said:

do you know why shipments are made?

Click to expand...

Do you know of the HP Touchpad? Might want to look that one up and how many they 'shipped' vs 'sold'

You obviously have NO CLUE on how retail works or you wouldn't have made that ridiculous statement.

But since the iPhone 4S is the old model, shouldn't it be compared with the Samsung Galaxy S2? Lets see how it fairs then...

analysts cant estimate shyt.

those figures are estimated, right?

they(analysts) can't even estimate shyt.
estimated iphone 5 sales sales figures? wrong
estimated ipad sales figures? wrong

launch figures? wrong. quarter figures? wrong. yearly figures? wrong.

wrong by a very FAR margin.

what makes them credible to even predict samsung numbers.

Westacular said:

Apple launches are much bigger events. There's greater public awareness of them, and of their release cycles, and (combined with a probably more loyal customer base) a bigger surge in sales follows each new release.

The launch of a new Samsung Galaxy phone doesn't have nearly the same visibility in the general news media.

Click to expand...

I dunno - seems everytime I flip on the TV I'm seeing a Samsung ad telling me how stupid I am for buying an iPhone....

Of course!

In other news today, more Fords and Chevys were sold last year than BMWs!

wharzhee said:

those figures are estimated, right?

they(analysts) can't even estimate shyt.
estimated iphone 5 sales sales figures? wrong
estimated ipad sales figures? wrong

launch figures? wrong. quarter figures? wrong. yearly figures? wrong.

wrong by a very FAR margin.

what makes them credible to even predict samsung numbers.

Click to expand...

I wish SNL would do a skit on exactly this...after they did the iPhone 5 skit and the tech bloggers got their collective @$$e$ handed to them, it would be nice to see them do the same to the Wall Street analysts.

----------

MacRumorUser said:

Credit where credit is due. The Samsung Galaxy S3 and it's advertising clearly offer something consumers want.

As much as I love iOS, it's in need of aesthetic revamp, because currently its a little flat. iOS 5 at least brought Siri to the table. iOS 6 has brought Maps (to public derision) and lost YouTube (to public derision) and has passbook which is just about useless anywhere in the world other than the 3 stores in the USA using it.

I much prefer the iPhone 5 over my HTC one X, but that doesn't mean I can't see that iOS is in good need of a robust update / overhaul.

Click to expand...

That's why Ive was put in charge of the UI.

Impressive, Apple are just being crushed now which is why they have to sue everyone

Quality over Quantity

Has anyone used a Galaxy device? They dont compare in quality or function. I had Android before, and I provide support for some staff own those devices, and the issue lies in both the hardware and the usability of the software. That ecosystem is just not as functional or as easy to approach as it should be. They may be cheaper to purchase, and to manufacture, but they are just not that great of a device or mobile OS.

Ryth said:

Do you know of the HP Touchpad? Might want to look that one up and how many they 'shipped' vs 'sold'

You obviously have NO CLUE on how retail works or you wouldn't have made that ridiculous statement.

Click to expand...

Yap, and when quarter after quarter the shipped units grow is because there a lot of returned phones.

photographypro said:

In other news today, more Fords and Chevys were sold last year than BMWs!

Click to expand...

And who is the BMW and who the Ford?

Ryth said:

Do you know of the HP Touchpad? Might want to look that one up and how many they 'shipped' vs 'sold'

You obviously have NO CLUE on how retail works or you wouldn't have made that ridiculous statement.

Click to expand...

Comparing it to the touchpad, when is the $99* Samsung Galaxy S III firesale taking place?

Give those of us that have NO CLUE a clue please.

*$99 unsubsidised.

Ryth said:

Do you know of the HP Touchpad? Might want to look that one up and how many they 'shipped' vs 'sold'

You obviously have NO CLUE on how retail works or you wouldn't have made that ridiculous statement.

Click to expand...

So you seriously think that the Galaxy S3 has not sold well?
All I'm saying is that Samsung is improving and considering how much competition is in the Android market, I think that the numbers speak well of Samsung's newest "iPhone competitor"
Sorry not all of us have the retail knowledge of you oh great one

Oletros said:

Yap, and when quarter after quarter the shipped units grow is because there a lot of returned phones.

Click to expand...

Maybe you are talking in general, but at this point we only have one full quarter of S3 shipments. Obviously, Samsung was still building up channel inventory during Q3.

gmanist1000 said:

Wow a new phone beats an old phone? Amazing.

Click to expand...

Same exact thing I thought. The s3 came out, what, 9 months AFTER the 4S.

The 5 and s3 are closer in relation to release date.