Apple’s iPhone 4S Sales Sky-High, But Will Samsung Reign Supreme?

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In a striking turnaround from Apple’s ho-hum iPhone 4S unveiling and lackluster initial response from the public, the device is shaping up to be one of the most important product launches in the company’s history, with over 4 million units sold within the first three days of release, according to an announcement from Apple on Monday.

“iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend–the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, in the statement. “iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.”

With such a monumentally successful opening, who, if anyone could possibly hope to challenge Apple’s global dominance of the smartphone sector?

Well, Samsung, for one, is trying its best to steal Apple’s thunder.

On Monday, the South Korean-electronics manufacturer also had an announcement to make: It’s sold 30 million units of its Galaxy series of smartphones (the S and SII) globally since last year.

The Galaxy S, released in June 2010, accounted for 20 million units in sales while the Galaxy S II, released in May, has sold an estimated 10 million units. It sold 5 million units in eight weeks, meaning that iPhone 4S sales in early markets (the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the U.K.), absolutely crushed it.

It’s worth noting, though, that the Galaxy S II has only been available in the U.S. since September 16.

As Boy Genius Reports notes: “Samsung is the world’s largest Android smartphone vendor and the second largest phone vendor. It is currently competing with Apple for the world’s largest smartphone vendor tag. ”

The real test will come tomorrow, when Apple unveils its fourth quarter earnings, and its first since Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO. Then, we’ll be able to see whether Samsung displaced Apple in the total number of smartphones shipped over the quarter.

According to Samsung’s own third quarter guidance, released October 7, it’s on track to beat analyst expectations and seize the mantle from Apple as the world’s leading smartphone maker in the third quarter (Apple’s statements are roughly on the U.S. fiscal calendar, September through September, compared to Samsung’s, which are on the calendar year, hence the discrepancy. In other words, Apple is always a quarter ahead of Samsung.)

As the blog Mobiledia notes:

Apple’s iPhone was the top-selling smartphone in the U.S. in the second quarter, but Samsung is hoping results from its summer sales will help it close the gap. Google’s Android platform is the market share leader when it comes to operating systems, but no devices have come as close to emulating the iPhone’s popularity as Samsung’s Galaxy phones.

Apple lead the way in the second quarter, with 20.3 million iPhones sold, displacing Nokia to become the largest-single smartphone vendor in the world. But Samsung wasn’t far behind during that same period, with 17.3 million phones sold over the same period. Shipments were even closer: Apple shipped 20 million phones while Samsung shipped 19 million, according to the blog Mobiledia.

And on a related aside, Samsung isn’t above getting down into the mud with Apple when it comes to patent litigation: Also on Monday, Samsung filed patent infringement claims against Apple, seeking a ban on sales of the iPhone 4S in Japan and Australia. It previously moved to have the iPhone 4S banned in France and Italy. The cases are all still pending, with a hearing in Paris, France set for Thursday. Yet Apple appears to be leading the way when it comes to legal victories, getting Samsung Galaxy tablets banned in Germany and Australia (though it appears that buyers are flouting the bans, at least down under).

The Apple-Samsung dispute is just the most vivid manifestation of a much larger battle though, between Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s Android, which powers Samsung’s devices. When factoring in the multitude of additional Android smartphones, Google clearly has the edge: Globally, Android devices topped the list in the second quarter with 43.7 percent of the market share, followed by Nokia’s Symbian OS with 22.1 percent and iOS with 18.2 percent, according to Gartner. And Google hopes its new version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4) set to be unveiled in conjunction with a new Samsung device on Oct. 19, will only exacerbate the disparity.

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