Apple’s iPhone 5 has finally managed to snatch the world’s best selling smartphone title from the Samsung Galaxy S III thanks to its outstanding demand in the last quarter of 2012. This announcement was made after Strategy Analytics, a research and consulting firm released the latest figures on Wednesday, February 20th. The popular flagship smartphone from Apple managed to grab the title after its worldwide shipments in the last three months of 2012 dramatically increased from six million units in the Q3 of the previous year to an extraordinary 27.4 million units. On the other hand, the shipments of Samsung Galaxy S III plunged down from 18 million to 15.4 million units during the same time period.
It was a notable change in the role of the two companies because in the Q3 of 2012 Samsung managed to squeak pass Apple given that the South Korean company shipped 18 million units of the Galaxy S III, whereas the Cupertino-based company dispatched 16.2 million units of iPhone 4S. Nevertheless, Apple later managed to get a hold of the crown because of the impressive iPhone 5 sales. However, surprisingly the introduction of iPhone 5 did not affect the sales of its predecessor. In fact sales of iPhone 4S were even better in Q4 than the third quarter, as Apple shipped 17.4 million units of the handset during the period.
Still one cannot discard Samsung from the competition just on the basis of the latest figures ofrom Strategy Analytics because these numbers do not account other devices from the Korean company like Galaxy Note I and II. Therefore, Samsung should not worry, as it’s unfair to compare the two companies on the basis of this data. Moreover, Galaxy S III is still has a strong demand considering the fact that it was released in May last year and along with the iPhone this handset has also competed against other high-end smartphones like HTC One X, Nokia Lumia 920, Nexus 4 and now BlackBerry Z10.
It is expected that Apple may remain in the lead during the first quarter of 2013 because Samsung could announce the Galaxy S IV on March 14th as per rumours that can result in low Galaxy S III sales. If this rumour proves true then Samsung has another chance to top Apple once again as this battle between the two smartphone manufacturers is a constant back and forth. Because both companies now releases a new flagship phone six months after one another during each year.
Source: TNW
Photo: DigitalTrends