Samsung Galaxy S3 breezes past 40 million sales mark

The Samsung Galaxy S3 may be six months old -- which in smart phone terms means we're fitting a stairlift in its house while the broadsheets write their obituaries -- but it's still earning Samsung big piles of cash, having hit the impressive 40 million sales mark.

Samsung's lofty sales figures represent channel sales -- the number of units flogged to retailers -- rather than the number of actual S3 devices in shoppers' pockets. The S3 hit 30 million units shipped back in November.

The gangbusters sales mean the S series trilogy -- also including the Galaxy S and Galaxy S2 -- have collectively passed the 100 million sales mark globally. The Galaxy S and S2 have hit 24 and 40 million shipments respectively, Samsung says.

Samsung's quad-core smart phone goes head-to-head with Apple's iPhone 5, which Tim Cook and pals said sold 5 million in its first weekend on sale. Both smart phones are excellent choices in my mind, though the Galaxy S3 stormed to victory in our Best Phone of 2012 poll, as voted for by our sagacious readers.

This year, all eyes are on Samsung to see what it's packed into the Galaxy S4. Rumours point to an 'unbreakable' screen, while the smart money is on a more powerful processor and a beefed-up screen resolution, possibly a 5-inch 1080p job. Samsung's found some success with its palm-ripping Note and Note 2 smart phones, so I expect the screen size to increase.

Samsung and Apple could both have their thunder nicked by Google, if it chooses to release another super-cheap smart phone in the vein of the Nexus 4 within the next new months. The glorious Nexus 4 costs just £239 if you can buy it from Google -- a fact that made it, in my opinion, the most exciting gadget of last year, in spite of its stock problems.

Whose gadget will be crowned top of the tech tree at the end of 2013? Grab your pick and get speculatin' in the comments or on our Facebook wall.