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Samsung shipped six million Galaxy S4s in less than three weeks

trparky

Android Enthusiast
Jun 11, 2011
692
138
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Korean tech giant Samsung is well on their way to setting new records with the recently released Galaxy S 4 smartphone. An unnamed Samsung executive recently told a Korean newspaper that the company supplied four million Galaxy S4 handsets to telecoms around the world at the end of April.

As of May 10, Samsung said they have sold more than six million units and could easily top the 10 million mark by the end of this month. That’s pretty impressive for a smartphone that didn’t begin shipping until April 26 and is outpacing previous Samsung launches by a large margin. But how does it stack up to previous launches?

In 2010, it took Samsung 85 days to ship three million Galaxy SI handsets. A year later the company was able to ship three million Galaxy SIIs in 55 days and in 2012 it took just 21 days to move three million Galaxy SIIIs. And for 2013, it took just 19 days to move six million Galaxy S 4s.

As Information Week points out, Samsung can credit the continued growth to a strong marketing push and distribution agreements. True enough, the Galaxy S 4 hit all four of the major wireless carriers in the US and is even available from regional telecoms like US Cellular and Cricket. It starts at $199 and goes up to $249 – depending on storage capacity - with a two year agreement on most carriers. Or if you want to skip subsidies and pick up an S 4 with a clean install of Android, Google has you covered starting next month for $649.

From Samsung shipped six million Galaxy S4s in less than three weeks - TechSpot
 
It is still a semantics game. Samsung is pushing this word out, but the S3 would have done the same thing. Difference being the S3 was launched in a staggered manner through regions of the globe over a few months. The S4 was as close to a same-time global launch as possible. The compromise to customers for this were a high mix of Qualcomm chipsets and virtually no 32GB options beyond an allocation to AT&T and a small amount for the Octa version.

On a side note, it is a surprise that Apple are not releasing a bigger version on the iPhone this year. Earlier this year, Samsung had mentioned they were expecting something different as far as the iPhone. Based on part "leaks" for the 5s, it looks like it is the same 4" and design, but with some internal changes.

Samsung is probably very happy. Added: They should celebrate by sending all carriers some 32GB versions. Yeah, that's the ticket!
 
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i thought i read somewhere that samsung spent as much or more on marketing as they did on r&d.

regardless, to have the supply chain and carrier channels optimized to push out those numbers in that period of time is impressive. and the feedback from the market has been overwhelmingly positive. samsung is doing a good job of turning the smartphone battle of android vs apple into samsung vs apple.
 
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Samsung says Galaxy S4 is its fastest-selling smartphone of all time

They claim 6 million units sold in 2 weeks. And they claim it is the fastest selling smartphone ever.

How true is that though?

AT&T/Apple said that the iPhone 5 sold 5 million units in a weekend launch back in September.
It's a marketing claim made by marketeers and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

If you looked into the detail of what any of these claims really meant they would be hazy to say the least. I'm sure that the S4 has sold very well and will continue to sell well but these claims are all a bit meaningless.
 
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I wonder if those numbers are the amount sold to individual consumers or if that is the number of GS4s sold to retailers/providers?

And I'm sure it's gross.. not net (of returns).

I've had two of them already, but only one at a time. :D

It is sell-in to the channels rather than consumers. It always is, regardless of company or retail industry. If it were sell-through to actual consumers, they would call it as such. The fun one is when companies constrain production and shipments artificially to get the "sold out" buzz a raging. Samsung is not doing this for the S4 launch. They want market share gobbled up before the 5s releases.

Added: Seems the 5s is only a refresh, so no larger display new design device for Samsung to worry about as they were assuming. Apple is worried though, hence their litigation efforts to restrict sales.
 
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The numbers are shipped to distributors and retailers, that's money in the bank for Samsung. They don't sell to individuals directly. As a publicly traded company, I'd say that the numbers are very meaningful.

The source story for this in Asia said 6 million shipped, and Samsung said that it was their biggest selling phone.

The semantics are the fault of the sensationalist blogosphere.

What else is new?
 
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It is their biggest selling phone due to their logistical decision of how to ship ;) They have condensed the mass launch window to half the S3 window. Inherently this results in their biggest selling phone at launch as a result. The bloggers and media are parroting Samsung with minimum conjecture.

Agreed, the supply will be consumed, but seems their launch strategy is why the availability of larger models is also constrained. Production efficiency and expediency were obviously critical in shrinking the launch window so significantly. Impressive.
 
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Million, I think

Nope. Billion. Yes, Samsung shipped 10 phones to every human on the planet in the first quarter.

Well - it's got to be either that or my typo was this big:

2003013-godzilla_facepalm_godzilla_facepalm_face_palm_epic_fail_demotivational_poster_1245384435.jpg


Thanks for the catch! :) :eek:
 
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Read somewhere that they expect HTC to ship 6 million One's this year as opposed to Samsung shipping over 60 million S4's this year. About 10 to 1.

Last estimate will put them at 3.5 million Ones by the end of this month vs. Samsung's estimated 10 million for the SGS4.

JP Morgan: HTC One Device Shortages Could End in May

HTC doubled production for the One in May vs April and announced another production increase for June.

Going to be a bumper year for high-end Androids. :)

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2013/04/30/htc-clsa-ups-to-buy-on-one-appeal-rising-prices/

Edit - on May 23rd, news blogs set the number of Ones shipped at 5 million.
 
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