Galaxy S3 Beats Apple, Becomes No. 1 Smartphone

Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3 has become the world’s best-selling smartphone model last quarter, pushing aside Apple Inc’s iPhone, which has dominated the chart for more than two years, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Thursday.

 Strategy Analytics estimated Samsung sold 18 million S3 models in the third quarter, compared with iPhone 4S sales of 16.2 million.

Strong sales of the flagship Galaxy S3 – which comes with a large 4.8 inch touchscreen – helped Samsung post a record $7.3 billion operating profit in the July-September quarter.

“Samsung’s Galaxy S3 has proven wildly popular with consumers and operators across North America, Europe and Asia,” said analyst Neil Mawston, adding the new iPhone 5 would likely reclaim the top spot for Apple in the current quarter.

However, Apple’s new iPhone 5 is widely expected to reclaim the top sales spot.

Strong Galaxy smartphone sales helped Samsung report record profits in the three months to September. Net profit was 6.5tn won ($5.9bn; £3.7bn), up 91% from a year earlier.

But analysts say that one reason Samsung’s phone was able to wrest the top sales spot from Apple’s iPhone 4 was because many customers were waiting for the iPhone 5, which was launched during the third quarter.

The Apple iPhone 5 has already got off to a solid start and “we expect the new iPhone 5 to out-ship Samsung’s Galaxy S3 in the coming fourth quarter”, said Neil Mawston.

“Apple should soon reclaim the title of the world’s most popular smartphone model,” he added.