All eyes are on Samsung, as we tick down the hours to the S3’s unveiling. Here’s why it promises to smash records and tear up the smartphone market rulebook forever…
1 Simultaneous international launch means its impact is undiluted
The S2 managed to annex magazine, tech site and newspaper column inches and rack up over 20 million sales despite a botched, staggered release that meant it landed on some US carriers six months after it debuted in Europe.
This time Samsung is giving its flagship a simultaneous global release. With no dilution of its impact at launch, that ought to equate to the Galaxy S3 making a massive splash early on.
Team this with Sammy's rumoured vast ad-spend and the resulting massive visibility for the S3 and it means it’s odds-on to power to a sales record for an Android phone and come close to the kind of numbers usually reserved for iPhones.
2 It’ll engender an age of quad-core apps
The huge sales that the Galaxy S3 is set to rack up will provide a huge financial fillip for devs to create apps that take advantage of its graphical muscle. We think you can start pencilling the first massively immersive, graphically rich games in about 12 months time.
That’s not to say that it’ll kill off the likes of Angry Birds and its 79p, casual ilk. More’s the pity. But quad-core phones like the S3 must mean the clock is ticking for them…
3 It’s going to take 'phablets' to the mass market
The Galaxy Note has done sales of over five million since landing last October. That’s much more than was expected. But still a long way from the numbers needed to say that larger screen devices have come of age.
With a display mooted to be between 4.6 and 4.8-inches, the S3 is a phablet in all but name. And by hipping the mass market to the joys of acres of screen real estate, the S3 could be the gateway device that pushes that much maligned form factor to bigger things.
4 It’ll give NFC the push it needs
In keeping with Samsung’s status as an Olympics sponsor, the S3 will surely be touted as the event’s official phone.
What will this mean? Well, we think part of the deal will be that it’ll pack NFC support to be used by punters around the Olympic site to pay for low-ticket items and salty sustenance at high-street retailers and restaurants by swiping their phone over a reader.
More importantly, let’s assume the S3 does 30 million units. That’s tens of millions of extra handset owners with NFC-capable phones in their pockets. We think on sheer numbers alone, the S3 will be critical in taking the tech overground.
5 Brand recognition
Part of the S2’s success was down to Samsung’s greater brand visibility compared with other Android phone makers, not least HTC.
That, teamed with the penetration achieved by the S2 and the Note, and the fact that sales of HTC’s One range don’t seem to be matching their glowing reviews, mean that all the stars are aligning for the S3 to blow a huge hole in the market.
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