Samsung may have lost the copyright battle to Apple in the courtroom, but it has outdone the Cupertino based Company in the marketplace. The Samsung Galaxy S III, not the iPhone has won the title of the world’s most popular smartphone for the third quarter of 2012, according to data from Strategy Analytics.
The victory, however, likely won’t stick since the GSIII was launched few months earlier than the iPhone 5 and has been on sale for the entire quarter — from July 1 to Sept. 30 — the iPhone 5 on the other hand first went on sale Sept. 21, just nine days before the close of the quarter. Many iPhone buyers have been waiting for the 5, and sales will likely pick up for Q4.
Combined, the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 actually outnumber the Galaxy S III, 11.3% to 10.7%, but as individual models, the Galaxy S III beats the 4S, which is just 9.7%.
Analysts attribute the GSIII’s success to “a large touchscreen design, extensive distribution across dozens of countries, and generous operator subsidies,” among other factors. Samsung introduced a ton of features — including NFC, a burst-shooting camera, its own Siri clone, S Voice — into the Galaxy S III and then backed it with a massive marketing campaign.
However Mashable‘s review of the Galaxy S III though found it capable, it found that some of the new features didn’t work as well as Samsung had advertised.
