Samsung’s smartphone and tablet game is big; bigger than anyone else’s and bigger than ever. Samsung sold more smartphones than any other single company this year, and that includes Apple as well. We’ve seen Samsung lower their sales goals in the past, despite record-breaking actual sales, and now they’re doing some trickery with the numbers. When the Galaxy S4 was initially announced, Samsung stated that they expected to sell 10 million Galaxy S4’s per month, for a total of 100 million in the device’s lifetime. This was a rather egregious number, given that the incredibly popular Galaxy S III “only” sold 50 million in its lifetime. Samsung is now modifying its sales goals again, stating that the combined shipments of Galaxy S and Galaxy Note phones will hit 100 million for 2013.
This includes not only the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, but also the Galaxy S III and Note II. This is a significant figure not just because it’s less than what Samsung has projected in the past, but they are also lumping last year’s devices into that sales figure for this year. With that being said, Samsung still expects considerable growth in the smartphone market, citing a more than 10% compounded annual growth rate over the next year, with LTE handsets worldwide reaching an over 30% compounded annual growth rate according to Samsung CEO JK Shin.
While Apple still has much of the tablet market on lockdown, Android tablets are rapidly catching up, and Samsung’s tablets are playing a huge part in this growth throughout the world. According to industry analysts, over 240 million tablets will ship worldwide this year, and according to Samsung’s CEO JK Shin, 40 million of those will have the Samsung name on them. Samsung assures us that this number will be even higher next year, aiming for that magic 100 million sold mark by the end of 2014. They are attempting to accomplish this with the 10″ and higher market, of which they said has the best sales and fastest growth in the tablet market. We’ve seen this push lately with the Galaxy Note 10.1, and soon with the Galaxy Note 12. CEO JK Shin also went on to state that he’d like to see the PC and tablet markets merge, and it’s any wonder with the company pushing so many dual-boot devices that boot both Android and Windows RT. Time will tell if this will really happen, but given the constant decline in the laptop and PC market in favor of other, more mobile computing devices, this certainly isn’t outside of the realm of possibility over the next few years and even decades.