Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Breaks 10m Barrier
Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 has passed the 10m sales mark, taking just sixty days to set phablet sales records, and doubling the pace set by the Note 2 before it. A simultaneous launch across 58 countries didn't hurt, Samsung says, but the company also credits the appeal of the large screen in North American and European markets, and the stylus input option for phonetic languages such as in China, as broadening demand for the large phone.
In fact, the Note 3 is the fourteenth phone to make it into Samsung's "10m club", with the earliest being the SGH-T100 clamshell of 2002. In more recent years, the Galaxy S, SII, S III, and S4, not to mention the Galaxy Note, Note II, and now Note 3 have all made it from Samsung's Android range, though not all at the same speed.
It's that pace which is most telling, arguably. Samsung has seen sales growth of both its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note ranges increase with each iteration, though it's unclear how much faster demand for future devices can get.
Meanwhile, it's also worth remembering that what different manufacturers count as sales aren't always the same thing. In Samsung's case, it tracks the sales into channel – i.e. the number of Note 3 handsets that go out to retailers, carriers, and others, to be sold on to end consumers – which means that it's entirely possible that a percentage of these 10m Note 3 handsets are still sat on store shelves somewhere or in warehouses.
Nonetheless, considering the criticisms leveled at phablets in general, skepticism over whether consumers wanted a pen, and the increasing size of the Note 3 in particular, it's undoubtedly a successful product for Samsung. Next up is to see whether the phone can maintain its momentum, or if the simultaneous launch meant that some of the long-tale has been prematurely sapped.