According to Samsung, its new Galaxy S4 smartphone may be the best selling phone for the Korean company yet. During a forum in Seoul Thursday, Samsung announced that shipments are about to reach over the 10 million mark in a matter of days.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 was released worldwide less than a month ago in 60 countries and is expected to outsell its predecessor, the Galaxy S3. This is good news for Samsung, although product shipments and actual product sales are two different categories. Just because over 10 million units were shipped to various carriers and retailers around the world, does not necessarily forecast that consumer sales of the units will match that total.
The total amount of shipments in such a short span of time is impressive, which suggests that there is a demand for the Samsung Galaxy S4. Although the new smartphone may in fact, be selling much faster than the Galaxy S3, it may be too soon to call if the phone will be in the hands of 10 million consumers by next week.
"We are confident that we will pass more than 10 million sales of the S4 next week. It is selling much faster than the previous model S3," Samsung CEO Shin Jong-kyun said.
"Samsung spent 50 days to pass the 10 million sales mark for the S3. The S4 will be Samsung's first '10 million seller' device less than a month after its official debut," Shin said, according to the Korea Times.
Apple is also guilty of reporting shipment of devices as actual sales, many companies are known for this practice. Usually when Apple releases its quarterly reports for the iPhone, "sell in" figures of the device are reported. This is the total amount of iPhones shipped to Apple retail partners such as AT&T, Best Buy and Walmart. This does not always reflect actual sales of the iPhone, but according to Apple, once shipments are transferred to retail, it's considered delivered to the consumer.
"Product is considered delivered to the customer once it has been shipped and title and risk of loss have been transferred. For most of the Company's product sales, these criteria are met at the time the product is shipped," reads Apple's latest earnings statement.
