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Keeping with the trend of being the company’s “fastest selling smartphone ever”, Samsung has just announced that the Galaxy S4 has sold 40 million units world-wide.
Samsung CEO JK Shin revealed this data earlier today while speaking to Korean media regarding speculation that the Galaxy S4 had not sold as well as Samsung had originally expected. The device has been on the market for about six months now, and within the first month, the device had shipped 10 million units worldwide.
For comparison’s sake, the Galaxy S3 had shipped 30 million units after just six months on the market. So despite some speculation that the Galaxy S4 was too similar to its successor to sell at the same rate, the device is clearly doing just fine.
One thing worth noting is that it’s somewhat unclear as to whether JK Shin is referring to sales or shipments of the device. Should it be the latter of those, then Samsung has not actually sold 40 million Galaxy S4 units to customers, but rather shipped them to retailers to sell.
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IDC is out today with its latest report tracking worldwide tablet shipments reporting that total shipments have experienced a sequential decline during Q2 at the expense of Apple and the iPad. Apple already announced that it had sold 14.6 million iPads during the quarter, a significant drop from the 17 million it sold in the year ago quarter, but today IDC gives us some insight into where that puts Apple in its lead over Samsung as the top tablet vendor.
Apple was able to pick up 32.4% of the market during Q2, continuing its lead as the top tablet manufacturer, but dropping from the 60.3% of the market it had in Q2 last year. While Apple’s tablet shipments are clearly suffering from lack of new product announcements this year, it’s also losing share to Samsung and others. IDC reports 277% year over year growth for Samsung, giving it 18% of the market with 8.1 million units shipped during Q2. All of the top 3 vendors– Apple, Samsung, and ASUS– experienced a drop compared to Q1 2013, but the Android tablet makers have experienced significant growth compared to Apple since last year.
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Graphic: theverge.com
Several Korean news sites are reporting that the Samsung S4 has now passed 20 million shipments. Samsung’s flagship handset, launched in April, hit 10m shipments by the end of May and it appears that the pace has scarcely slowed since – almost matching that of the iPhone 5.
As ever, we have to caution that Samsung cites shipments rather than sales, meaning that unsold handsets stored in warehouses get counted, but in general carriers and retailers don’t like to sit on large inventories, so sales shouldn’t lag shipments by too big a gap …
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This past weekend, a rumor had claimed that Google is holding talks with WhatsApp to acquire the messaging service for around $1 billion. Tonight, WhatsApp has told AllThingsD that it is not holding sales talks with Google. Meanwhile, Google is rumored to soon be launching its own “Babel” messaging service.
Samsung’s Mobile Chief has some harsh words directed towards Microsoft. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, J.K. Shin said that Android devices such as phones and tablets are outselling Windows Phone devices and there is a clear demand for Android over Windows.
The exact Q&A goes as follows:
WSJ: What about your relationship with Microsoft? Has it changed after Nokia began to work more closely with Microsoft on Windows devices?
Mr. Shin: Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft’s Windows operating system aren’t selling very well. There is a preference in the market for Android. In Europe, we’re also seeing lackluster demand for Windows-based products.
While it’s clearly no surprise that Android devices are outselling Windows devices, the harsh words come just months after lackluster sales of the Microsoft Surface RT and Pro. According to a report this morning from Bloomberg, “people with knowledge about the companies sales” are saying that Microsoft has sold about 1.5 million Surface devices total. Also keep in mind that Samsung just announced the Galaxy S IV, the successor to the best-selling Android phone on the planet, which’ll be sure to gather up some massive sales for Samsung.
Reuters reported today that a U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington rejected Apple’s attempt to get a sales ban on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus. Apple asked the court to revisit a previous decision to reject the company’s request for the sales ban leading up to a full trial set for March 2014. The case involved patents not included in the California trial that awarded Apple a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung.
Apple wanted the full Federal Circuit of Appeals, made up of nine active judges, to reverse the earlier ruling. But in a brief order on Thursday, the court rejected Apple’s request without detailed explanation or any published dissents… Several experts had believed that Apple faced long odds, as the legal issues in play were not considered controversial enough to spur full court review.
Reuters noted that Apple could still appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court:
Apple could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the high court has made it more difficult for patent plaintiffs to secure sales injunctions in recent years.
There were hints a couple of days ago, but Samsung officially confirmed on its website this morning that it surpassed 30 million global sales of the Galaxy S III since it first launched five months ago in May. Samsung noted that’s 20 million more devices than the 10 million Galaxy S II units sold in its first 150 days. Samsung also announced last week that it sold 3 million units of its new Galaxy Note II in just 37 days of being on sale.
Shortly after becoming available in the United States and Canada at various retailers and Google Play in mid-July, we reported Google suspended orders of the 16GB version while reports claimed the company had simply sold out of initial supplies. It would take Google weeks to restock the device, according to reports, but the 16GB model was again available on the store just a week later. Today, we get a look at just how many Nexus 7 tabs Google might have sold with analyst Sameer Singh estimating 6- to- 8 million units sold by the end of 2012 (via ComputerWorld):
Google could sell between six million and eight million of its $199 Nexus 7 tablets by year’s end, according to a new estimate… That’s more than double the three million Google expected to sell by the end of 2012, after putting the device on sale in July and seeing the 16GB version sell-out briefly… The estimate, based on projections using expected shipments of four million touch panels for the Nexus 7 in the third quarter 2012,
Google has not released any sales data related to the device and declined to comment on the estimates. Singh’s estimates definitely blow by the “1.5 million units in five weeks” estimated by Gartner. The estimate of 8 million units by year’s end is also significantly higher than Gartner’s estimates. According to Singh, “Google and Asus may have roughly doubled their [sales] estimates and cranked up the production volume.” Singh explained how he used panel orders to come up with his estimates:
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JK Shin, head of Samsung’s mobile division, told reporters today (via Reuters) that the company expects to sell over 10 million units of the recently launched Galaxy S III during July. Despite concerns of component shortages for the flagship device, the company is expecting higher earnings for its current quarter compared to the $3.6 billion profit generated from January to March:
Samsung kicked off global sales of its Galaxy S III on May 29, but shipments have been affected by the tight supply of parts such as the handset casing for the pebble-blue model… In the United States, where sales were launched last Thursday, major carriers including Sprint Nextel Corp, T-Mobile and AT&T have not been able to offer the Galaxy with 32 gigabytes of memory, partly due to tight supply… “Due to overwhelming demand for the Galaxy S III worldwide, Samsung has informed us they will not be able to deliver enough inventory of Galaxy S III for Sprint to begin selling the device on June 21.”
Shin assured reporters that the company is not worried about the shortages affecting second quarter results. Shin noted “supply simply can’t meet soaring demand,” but he claimed, “things will get better from next week”:
In a land where SUVs rule the landscape in the face of growing fuel costs, it is little surprise that a well-made, huge Android Phablet would sell well in the U.S. Indeed, Samsung’s Galaxy Note got a supers-shot of sales adrenaline when it reached the United States shores.
The Note passed 2 million in sales earlier this month, but add its recent U.S. launch, and the smartphone maker now claims it has sold 5 million devices. Detractors will of course claim that 5 million sold “into inventory and not necessarily sales.” Samsung clarifies that these are sales. It is pretty clear that there are not a million devices in inventory—these are selling well either way.
Samsung passed 1 million Notes at the end of last year. My Galaxy Note review.
When Barnes & Noble unveiled the new Android-powered Nook Tablet, it was clear it would be a Kindle Fire competitor and not necessarily compete in the broader tablet market. Well we already learned earlier this month that Amazon is set to ship around four million units by the end of 2011, but despite that the Nook Tablet is also posting strong numbers with DigiTimes reporting the company has shipped a million units since launch.
Barnes & Noble should have so far taken delivery of one million units of Nook Tablet PCs from OEM production partners… The market had originally expected Barnes & Noble to pull in orders for 800,000 Nook Tablet PCs before year-end 2011, indicated the sources, adding that the increased orders from Barnes & Noble has strengthened Inventec’s position in the OEM tablet PC segment.
At the beginning of December, research firm IHS iSuppli expected Amazon to take estimated 13.8 perfect share of the global tablet market. At that time, the report had Barnes & Noble at 4.7 percent of the market in comparison to Amazon’s 13.8%. These numbers were of course before we learned the Kindle Fire’s initial shipment numbers today. DigiTimes contributes the increased shipments due to strong sales of the Kindle Fire during the Thanksgiving shopping holiday and in anticipation of the upcoming Christmas holidays. Barnes & Noble could potentially begin to close the gap depending on how it performs against the Kindle Fire in the coming weeks.
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Nintendo president Satoru Iwata declared Apple and iOS as the “enemy of the future” back in 2010. Not only was he right, according to new estimates for the U.S. portable game software by revenue from Flurry Analytics, 2011 seen Nintendo’s grip on the market slide even further as iOS and Android games triple their marketshare from 20% in 2009 to 60% during 2011.
The graphic above shows U.S. revenue for Flurry’s portable gaming category- a category that now includes Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, iOS, and Android. As you can see, iOS and Android have together taken the lead from Nintendo with 58% of revenues in comparison to last year’s 34%. In comparison, Nintendo DS held 57% during 2010, while dropping to just 36% in 2011. Total US revenue jumped from $2.7 billion in 2009 to $3.3 billion in 2011.
When comparing combined game revenues of the two veterans– Sony and Nintendo– with the combined revenues of the two new guys– Apple and Google– 2011 will be the first year where the emerging platforms dominate with iOS and Android estimated to take in $1.9 billion in comparison to the DS and PSP’s $1.4 billion. That accounts for a $200 million drop for Sony and Nintendo and $1.1 billion increase for iOS and Android from 2010. Perhaps investors were right to urge Nintendo to begin developing iOS titles.
As for Nintendo, the company who captured approximately two-thirds of the market in 2009 has seen their “enemy of the future” demote them to just a third of the market. Sony clearly has some catching up to do, but is hard at work on highly anticipated new handheld devices for 2012.
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A new report from Digitimes says non-Apple tablet sales are expected to rise a solid 134% in 2012, higher than Apple’s projected growth rate for the same period. For 2011, the sale of Android tablets are expected to top 19-20 million units and the iPad’s expected to hit 35-36 million units. With the 134% rise this mean there could be 44-45 million Android units sold in 2012 and 54-55 million iPad units sold in 2012 — perhaps marginalizing Apple’s lead.
To help push Android (and others) to parity, many manufacturers will be releasing new hardware in the upcoming months, like Nvidia’s Kal-El quadcore processor slated for later this fall. On the software front, Google is expected to release Ice Cream Sandwich(Android 4.0) late fall or early 2012. With competition heating up, prices are already beginning to fall.
Who said 2011 was the year of the tablet? Just wait for 2012.
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Due to their wide variety of popular Android devices, Samsung “may have” surpassed Apple in smartphone sales according to Boston-based Strategy Analytics. In Q2 2011 Samsung is estimated to have sold between 18 – 21 million smartphones, while Apple sold 20.3 million iPhones, and Nokia sold 16.7 million. Certainly, they are at least #2.
Much of Samsung’s success is credited to sales of the Galaxy S II which has been booming overseas.
It’s far from official that Samsung has surpassed Apple, but at any rate they’re becoming a close competitor. We can’t wait to look at these numbers again when the Galaxy S II hits U.S. shores, but then again, the iPhone 5 is reportedly on its way too.