Samsung feels the power as Galaxy Note 2 lifts off
The company tells CNET that sales of its flagship Galaxy S III actually rose following the unveiling of the iPhone 5, the latest illustration of its run to the top. — Even Apple's iPhone 5 couldn't slow Samsung Electronics down.
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung enters the holiday quarter with unusual momentum behind two flagships at once. The Galaxy S III had already passed the iPhone 4S to become the top-selling US smartphone back in September, and the company followed that with a feature-by-feature ad campaign aimed squarely at Apple. Now it tells CNET that S III sales actually rose after the iPhone 5's unveiling — a direct rebuttal to the assumption that Apple's launch would drain its rival's pipeline.
The counterpoint sits in the measurement data: Chitika's [[a:1197820|usage tracking showed the iPhone 5 overtaking the Galaxy S III within three weeks on market]], so Samsung's claim of rising sales and Apple's surging web traffic are both true at once — a market big enough for both flagships to grow. The Galaxy Note 2's lift-off extends that bet into the larger-screen tier just as Apple counters with the iPad Mini announced October 23.
First-order effects
- Samsung heads into Q4 with a two-flagship lineup — the Galaxy S III and the pricier Galaxy Note 2 — giving carriers a premium Android option at every screen size while Apple fields only the iPhone 5.
- Apple's October 23 iPad Mini event now competes for the same holiday attention and wallet share, but per Samsung's own account it failed to stall Galaxy S III sell-through in the weeks after the iPhone 5 reveal.
Second-order effects
- Carriers gain leverage in holiday promotions: with two credible premium ecosystems on shelves, subsidy dollars and shelf space get bid across both camps rather than defaulting to Apple.
- Samsung's 'win on the merits' advertising posture forces Apple to respond on specifications and screen size rather than brand alone, escalating the marketing arms race into the Note 2's large-phone territory.
Third-order effects
- If each company's launches keep failing to dent the other's sales, the smartphone market hardens into an Apple–Samsung duopoly at the premium end, squeezing the second tier of Android vendors hardest.
- The pattern points toward screen size becoming the main axis of differentiation — Samsung pushing phablet-tier displays while Apple holds its line — setting up regulation-free competition over who defines the 'right' phone size.
The trend: Premium smartphones are consolidating into an Apple–Samsung duopoly in which each rival's flagship launch no longer slows the other, leaving scale, screen-size bets, and ad budgets as the deciding weapons.