Samsung Shifts 5m Galaxy S II Phones Ahead Of US Launch

Samsung’s new smartphone is proving to be extremely popular after the company revealed it had  sold 5 million Galaxy S II handsets in 85 days of availability.

The new handset has so far only appeared in South Korea, Japan and some European countries, according to Yonhap News.

The speedy sales of the handset comes after Samsung sold 3 million of the Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” devices in 55 days and 1 million in less than a month in Korea alone.

Launch Question

The white-hot sales bode well for Samsung, which just launched the Galaxy S II in China but has yet to release the much-ballyhooed phones through carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless in the United States. The big mystery is: when will the new devices launch stateside?

Shin Jong-kyun, president of Samsung’s mobile business and digital imaging, said at a media briefing 19 July that the company would launch the Galaxy S II phones in the US this August.

However, Samsung’s US contingent told eWEEK 20 July: “Samsung Mobile politely declines to comment on the upcoming availability of the Galaxy S II in the US.”

Meanwhile, Boy Genius Report snagged these images of AT&T’s Galaxy S II slider smartphone.

Other Galaxy S II handsets have proven to be thinner and lighter than the Galaxy S predecessors that sold over 10 million units in the US in 2010. The new handsets also use 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus (Super active-matrix organic LED Plus) screens and are powered by 1.2GHz processors.

The phones also include an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that captures video in 1080p, as well as a 2MP front-facing camera.

Ahead Of iPhone 5

Samsung is believed to be targeting an August US launch to get on retail shelves ahead of Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone 5, which is expected to launch this September or October.

Samsung’s urgency to get out the door in the US may be appropriate. Experian’s PriceGrabber said 35 percent of nearly 3,000 US consumers surveyed online said they would buy the iPhone 5 upon its release.

Samsung may have sold between 18 million and 21 million smartphones worldwide from April through June, compared with 16.7 million for Nokia and 20.3 million iPhones, according to research firm Strategy Analytics via Bloomberg.