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2012 was a great year for Samsung (despite the odd blip), with the Korean company overtaking Nokia to become the world’s biggest mobile maker. And next year it’ll ship out even more phones, according to a report.
Samsung expects to up the number of phones it ships to over 500 million units, according to the Korea Times. That’s a 20 percent increase on this year’s 420 million. Of those half a billion, 390 million are expected to be smart phones, and the rest budget feature handsets.
These stats differ somewhat from research company Gartner’s estimates, however. That company reckons Samsung will sell between 250 million and 300 million smart phones next year. But whichever is closer to the truth, it’s a huge increase on the 97.4 million smart phones Samsung sold in 2011, 23.9 million in 2010, and 600,000 in 2009.
These figures are for handsets shipped from Samsung to resellers, rather than actual devices in the hands of consumers. But still, they’re a pretty good indicator of demand.
Samsung’s biggest hit has been its flagship handset, the Galaxy S3, which has sold over 30 million units. Though its Galaxy Note 2 hasn’t done too badly either, managing 3 million. That’s even more impressive when you consider it’s over 5-inches big, a size unthinkable for a phone a couple of years ago, but that’s now becoming all the more popular.
And if you think 5-inches is a silly size for a phone, there could well be a 7-inch Galaxy Note on the way next year. Add that to the 6.1-inch Huawei Ascend Mate revealed recently, and you can’t deny it, phones are getting bigger.
Do you think Samsung will stay top dog for much longer? What do you reckon of the company’s devices? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
