Samsung shipped 56.9 million smartphone globally in the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics. That is 35 percent global share in a market that is also growing at 35 percent annually and last year reached 162 million smartphones.
In a statement, Neil Mawston, Strategy Analytics’ executive director, said “This was the largest number of units ever shipped by a smartphone vendor in a single quarter”. Samsung’s sales are starting to dwarf even those of Apple, which sold 26.9 million iPhones in the same period. The two companies together now account for over half of the smartphones sold globally each year, leaving old titans like Nokia in the dust with just 6.3 million smartphones sold, a number which sees them drop out of the top three manufacturers for the first time.
As Samsung has forged into the lead in the smartphone arena its profits have soared with the South Korean company reporting net profits for the quarter of $5.97 billion – a company record that was powered by exceptional sales of their Galaxy smart phones, and huge demand for display panels.