Galaxy and iPhone to top smartphone holiday sales

Tarmo Virki

Reuters US Online Report Technology News

Dec 16, 2011 08:10 EST

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Apple’s long-awaited iPhone 4S and Samsung Electronics’ fresh, broad offering are likely to stand out in this holiday season’s smartphone sales which will otherwise be clouded by global economic uncertainty.

Apple, which lost its position as the world’s largest smartphone maker to Samsung last quarter, could regain top spot as consumers rush to buy the latest iPhone after waiting 16 months since the previous model went on sale.

Like millions elsewhere, 36-year-old Vanessa Pigeon last week took up an offer from her telecom operator and replaced her aging Blackberry with the latest iPhone.

“I liked the design and I wanted to change for a long time,” said Pigeon, a recruitment official in Paris.

In neighboring Britain, which is often seen as the indicator for the rest of the European market, the iPhone took a whopping 43 percent market share in October, overtaking phones using Google Inc’s Android platform, according to research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

“It’s really only the iPhone family and the (Samsung) Galaxy family flying off the shelves. Everyone else is just picking up the leftovers,” said Neil Mawston, analyst at research firm Strategy Analytics in Milton Keynes, Britain.

HTC and Research In Motion — No.4 and No.5 smartphone vendors — have already warned of weak holiday sales. The year end is a key sales season for smartphone vendors as consumers often replace their models for the holidays.

Vendors are expected to sell a total of 142 million smartphones in October-December, up 42 percent from a year ago, according to a Reuters poll of analysts.

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