Samsung beats Apple's smartphone shipment figures

KOREAN ELECTRONICS GIANT Samsung shipped more than 20 million smartphones in its previous quarter, beating its fierce rival Apple.

Samsung's smartphone range spans three operating systems and, according to the Wall Street Journal, the firm has managed to overtake Apple and Nokia by shipping over 20 million in the three months up to 30 September 2011. In comparison, Apple revealed that it had sold 17.1 million smartphones in its most recent quarter, while yesterday Nokia said it had sold 16.8 million.

Samsung has done exceedingly well with Google's Android operating system. Its Galaxy range has gone from strength to strength. Although the company also has Windows Phone devices and ones running its own Bada operating system, Won-Pyo Hong, EVP of global product strategy at Samsung said at the Allthingsdigital Asia conference, "our relationship with Google was key".

Hong's comments regarding the firm's relationship with Google are exemplified by its Nexus S and most recently Galaxy Nexus devices, both of which were the first devices to have access to the latest version of Android.

Interestingly the WSJ said Samsung does not disclose smartphone shipments, but earlier this week the firm celebrated 30 million shipments of its Galaxy S and Galaxy S II smartphones. However, there was no word on how many of those devices actually ended up in the hands of punters.

While Samsung might have shipped more smartphones than Apple, it did so by having a large portfolio of products. Apple, on the other hand, managed to reach its 17.1 million devices sold by selling just the Iphone 3GS and the Iphone 4, making a lot more cash in the process. µ