According to Reuters, analyst firm Strategy Analytics has determined that during the third quarter of 2012, the Galaxy S III was the world's best-selling smartphone. Now, there is one small caveat that does put a slight damper on this rather big achievement for Samsung, and that's the fact that the iPhone 5 was slated to launch at the end of Q3, which always slows down current-gen iPhone sales. It's also pretty unlikely Samsung will hold onto this title for Q4. The numbers? An estimate of 18 million Galaxy S III's sold in Q3, and 16.2 million iPhone 4S's.
This is still pretty significant for Samsung. In fact, this is the first time ever that a single Android smartphone model has been estimated as the best-selling device in the world for a full calendar quarter. There was little doubt when Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S III that this would be the most popular Android smartphone yet, but when Samsung announced it had achieved 30 million S III sales, alongside 3 million Note II's, I think it was then that the impact was fully realized.