Tomorrow Samsung unveils the new Galaxy S4, notes Bloomberg, a few blocks from Apple’s flagship store in New York and broadcasting the event live in Times Square. While the iPhone pioneered the market for touch-screen phones in 2007, Samsung became the smartphone leader worldwide more than a year ago, according to IDC. Apple still remains No. 1 in the U.S.
The Galaxy S-4 will sport a 5-inch screen, slightly larger than the one on last year’s Galaxy S3, according to two people familiar with the product. The U.S. version will use Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor. In other markets, it may rely on Samsung’s “octacore” eight-core chip.
Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 600 processor will deliver up to 40% better performance than their latest quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. Still, Nvidia’s Tegra 4, in benchmarks, has outscored the HTC One powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 processor.
People familiar with the device say that eye scrolling won’t be in the Galaxy S4, though it may appear in future versions of the phone. There will be more simplified uses of eye-tracking technology, such as the ability to pause videos when the user’s eyes move away from the screen, the people said.
Samsung said the original Galaxy S, achieving 10 million sales during the first
seven months after its launch in June 2010, and now has racked up 24 million sales; the S II, released in 2011, has 40 million; and the S III, released in 2012, has achieved more than 40 million unit sales as well. Sales of the Galaxy S3 had reportedly hit 20 million in just over three months of its launch.
A total of 700 million smartphones were shipped world-wide in 2012. Combined, Android and Apple iOS together accounted for a record 92 percent share of all smartphones shipped worldwide.
Samsung and Apple are clearly the smartphone leaders, owning nearly half the smartphone market, but Huawei and ZTE are rising fast, says IDC tracker.
According to IDC, vendors shipped a total of 482.5 million mobile phones in 4Q12, with 219.4 million smartphones shipped worldwide in 4Q12, representing 45.5% of all mobile phone shipments.
