Samsung has every reason to celebrate, and also a very big reason to watch its back. Just as company president JK Shin announced more than 10 million sales of the Galaxy S III in just two months, a new Changewave study shows that demand for the upcoming iPhone 5 triples that for Samsung's flagship phone.
If you look at the results of the survey, conducted in June, 31 percent of respondents said that they were either somewhat likely or very likely to purchase an iPhone 5, compared to a combined 9 percent for the Galaxy S III. The survey included a brief description of the S III's features along with a preview description of the iPhone 5's expected highlights, including a larger display and 4G LTE capability.
That's not to say Samsung isn't on a hot streak. In fact, nearly one in five of those surveyed said they would purchase a phone from the world's largest phone manufacturer in the next 90 days. That number is up 6 percentage points since March and is nearly quadruple the number of intended shoppers since the third quarter of 2011. (Sorry, Nokia.)
What's probably just as encouraging to Apple is that demand for the iPhone 5 significantly surpasses that for the iPhone 4S when a similar survey was conducted in October of 2011, just as Siri was saying hello to the world for the first time. Back then a combined 21.5 percent said they would be very likely or likely to buy the iPhone 4S, so the new study shows a 44 percent increase.
Other data from the Chanewave survey shows flat to worse demand for other brands. Motorola is down 2 points to 4 percent, HTC is unchanged at 3 percent and RIM is stuck at a lowly 2 percent. Nokia demand is up, but only 1 point to 2 percent.
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