Selling 10 million units of any product in its first six months of initial let go is nothing to scoff at. In the world of smartphones, it’s surely a number to notice.
That’s why our eyebrows perked up when we read Samsung’s e-mail this morning, proclaimed that the company’s Android-based Galaxy S model has sold more than ten million units worldwide since its first appearance in late June.
It’s an admirable number, although not fairly in the same league as Apple, which sold 14.1 million iPhone 4 phones during the third quarter of 2010. And it absolutely gives RIM reason to worry: RIM sold 12.1 million phones in the third quarter, down 2.8 percent from the previous quarter, according to Comscore data released in November.
The fight for operating system share has been heated between the big three contenders: Apple’s iOS, Android and RIM’s Blackberry OS. But Android has seen a rush in attention in 2010. More than 40 percent of U.S. customers buy smartphones over the last six months have chosen Android-based phones, according to a recent report released by Nielsen, beating out the percentage of people who chose Apple, which rests at 26.9 percent.
But in the same Nielsen data, Apple shows its slight (if dwindling) edge in the in general number of phones out there. Apple’s iOS has an overall U.S. market share of 28.6 percent, binding out Android, which rests at 26.1 percent. RIM’s Blackberry OS comes in only slightly at the back Android at 25.8 percent.
There’s been a steady up trajectory of Android-based phone sales over the past two years. Motorola’s Droid sold an estimated 100,000 units over the weekend of its let go in late 2009. It took the Droid 74 days to reach the 1 million mark, according to research firm Flurry Analytics.
But it took Samsung a month less to arrive at the same point with the Galaxy S. The company said it had sold 1 million in the first 45 days since launch.
