With each new Samsung Galaxy flagship phone, the company is breaking records. On Thursday, Samsung announced the latest one: 10 million Galaxy S 4 sales in the first 30 days after launch. That figure is sales to retailers, not consumers, but it’s an accomplishment nonetheless. And strong U.S. sales should continue, as the Galaxy S 4 became available on Verizon today.
It’s interesting to see the time frame for each Galaxy smartphone to hit the 10 million sales number: It shows how much momentum Samsung has achieved in the past four years. It took seven months for the original Galaxy S to cross the 10 million units sold mark, while the Galaxy S 2 did so in five months. Last year’s Galaxy S 3 crossed the milestone in 50 days and now the current model has done the same in just a month.
All of this makes it more difficult for the Android manufacturers to break back into the market they once enjoyed. For the first quarter of 2013, Strategy Analytics estimated that Samsung has earned nearly 95 percent of the global Android smartphone market profits, leaving a pittance to be divided among LG, HTC and others.
No other Android handset maker has the supply chain chops and component factories to compete with Samsung at this point. And that’s bad news for companies such as HTC, which is facing a time of uncertainty as key executives are leaving the company.
It’s also not the best of situations for consumers. If Samsung continues to dominate, there could be fewer handset choices from other companies. Either that, or we’ll all be using Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface in the future.
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