Samsung Sets New Global Sales Record for Handsets in 2011

South Korea’s consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has a good reason to celebrate. The Korean consumer company sold more than 300 million handsets worldwide in 2011. It is a sales record for Samung, the maker said. In a statement, the world's second largest handset maker by volume said it had broken its sales record by the end of last month. According to Samsung, worldwide mobile handset sales last year were in the vicinity of 280 million units.

International multimedia news agency Reuters quoted JK Shin, president and head of Samsung's Mobile Communications Business, as saying, "We look forward to extending this success going into 2012."  The company attributes this success to flagship products Galaxy S smartphone series, Galaxy S and Galaxy S II. As per the report, GALAXY S II, which was launched in April, set a new sales record for Samsung phones by generating 10 million-unit sale.

According to Korea’s English daily newspaper The Chosunilbo, Samsung sold an average of nine handsets a second and 820,000 a day. If the 300 million handsets are piled up, they would be more than 300 times the height of Mt. Everest, wrote Chosunilbo.

The Gadgets magazine also reported a few other comments from Shin. The magazine’s website quoted Shin as saying, “We are incredibly proud of this record-breaking sales milestone and have exceeded the annual target announced early this year, which is testament to the enduring appeal of Samsung phones with consumers around the world.” He added, “Our performance in the mobile industry remains unrivalled. Samsung is the only manufacturer bringing such an exceptional choice of handsets to customers across a broad range of platforms including Android, Windows Phone and Samsung’s own bada platform — and on a truly global scale.”