Galaxy S III delivers: Samsung enjoys record sales
Forget all those legal entanglements.听
Samsung Electronics announced today that it raked in $7.3 billion in operating profits in the third quarter of 2012 鈥� a record for the South Korean tech giant. Samsung approximately two-thirds of that profit to sales of smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy III, which聽 even the mighty Apple iPhone in some markets. (Samsung has it sold a whopping 20 million Galaxy III handsets globally in just over three months.)聽
Horizons readers will remember that last quarter, Samsung shipped almost twice as many smartphones globally as Apple 鈥撀�50 million compared to Apple's 26 million. (In total, 176 million smartphones were shipped in the second quarter of 2012.)
Samsung and Apple are the new "global smartphone heavyweights,"聽Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst at IDC,聽聽at the time.听
So yes, things are looking up for Samsung. Which is not to say the company should get too comfortable.
"The biggest risk for Samsung is competitive product lineups from its rivals," Byun Han-joon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities, Reuters. "Because handsets drive most of its profits, one misstep in handsets could result in losses for the whole Samsung group."聽
In related news, Samsung has added听迟丑别 iPhone 5 to a suit previously filed against Apple in the聽United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Samsung claims Apple infringed on several of its mobile phone patents; other devices named in the suit include听迟丑别聽iPhone 4, iPhone 4S,聽iPod Touch,聽and the iPad.
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