A Reuters poll conducted of several smartphone marketplace analysts and experts shows continued growth for Samsung in the 4th quarter of 2012. Samsung is due to announce their financials on January 25, but the consensus is that it will be another record-breaking quarter on the heels of the South Korean company’s financially best quarter ever at the end of last year. And driving profits for Samsung are the best-selling Android powered Galaxy line of smartphones.
Reuters mirrored other research which has shown that Samsung and Apple have roared successfully ahead of the rest of the smartphone pack, controlling easily more than half of the global shipments annually. And analysts polled went on to forecast that the South Korean company shipped more than 61 million smartphones in the 4th quarter of 2012, a market share that would indicate a substantial increase of 71% from 2011 if those numbers stand up. Samsung earlier this month forecast that fourth-quarter profit from last year should run approximately $8.3 billion, and they pointed to the Galaxy S and the Galaxy Note smartphones is a substantial reason for that record-breaking profit.
Samsung and Apple seem to be tied at the hip when discussing smartphone industry leaders, and they spent much of last year around the world facing off in courtrooms as well. Apple’s continued insistence that Samsung is guilty of illegal copyright infringement in several areas has resulted in minor victories around the globe for Apple, but to date no significant legal victory has kept the best-selling Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note handsets off of brick and mortar and internet store shelves.
In that same quarter Apple is thought to have shipped approximately 46 million iPhones, a number which would be a rise of 25% from the same time frame in 2011, though much less than Apple was hoping for. Analyst predictions from the Reuters poll call for a jump from 134 million iPhones shipped last year to 167 million for Apple, as well as 283 million phones shipped for Samsung in 2013, a number which would be more than 33% higher than their 210 million shipped in 2012.
Samsung’s recipe for success in the smartphone marketplace has been 4G LTE connectivity, large high res screens and “cool” features. The Apple iPhone 5 continues to offer a high resolution screen with pixel density over 300 pixels per inch, as do the Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II smartphone. However, with Android’s Jelly Bean 4.1 operating system providing a much-needed faster and smoother interface, improved Google Now contextual search and virtual personal assistant, as well as delivering 4.80 inch and 5.55 inch screens respectively, the GS III and the Galaxy Note II have become flagship devices for their wireless carriers.
You can purchase the Galaxy S III at a discounted price tag now starting at $0.01.
