Samsung Galaxy S3 racks up 40 million sales

Global sales of Samsung's Galaxy S series of smartphones have broken past the 100 million mark, led by strong demand for its flagship Galaxy S3 smartphone.

Samsung reported its Galaxy S3 handset had reached 40 million sales, making it the company's biggest selling smartphone.

"In May 2012, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S3. It revolutionised the user experience, and was critically acclaimed, achieving 20 million global channel sales in just 100 days - which made it Samsung's fastest selling smartphone yet," read Samsung's statement.

"The Galaxy S3 has now passed the mark of 40 million unit channel sales."

The news marks a huge increase in Samsung Galaxy S smartphone sales levels. During the same period following its release of the Galaxy S3's predecessor, the Galaxy S2 only managed to break past the 10 million sales mark.

Despite the positive news, sales of Samsung's Galaxy S range of smartphones are currently under threat, with many being included in a list of devices competitor Apple wants banned.

Apple has requested sales bans on numerous Galaxy devices as a part of its ongoing global patent war with Samsung.

Despite the legal threat, Ovum analyst Adam Leach was optimistic regarding Samsung's continued success in the market.

"Samsung is in a good position to continue its dominate market position into 2013. The smartphone market continues to be highly competitive and Samsung needs to continue to build on the success of the Galaxy range," Leach told V3.

However, looking further ahead Leach warned Samsung would need to stop relying on third party developers for its services.

"To remain competitive in the long-term Samsung needs to ensure it can deliver a compelling proposition across its device line up including, tablets, smartphones and TVs. The company's Achilles' heel is its reliance on others for its developer experience and services," said Leach.

"This is an area Samsung needs to address for long-term success and to ensure consumers don't turn to the latest Android powered devices from other vendors."