Samsung sells 300 million phones in 2011

Samsung sells 300 million phones in 2011
Champagne corks popping at Samsung HQ

Someone call Guinness, we've got a new record – a new internal record that is, as Samsung announces it's sold 300 million mobile handsets in 2011, the most it's ever sold in a year.

In 2010, aka the year of the Samsung Galaxy S, the manufacturer sold around 280 million handsets. This year, the company sold 10 million Samsung Galaxy S2 handsets, which made a significant contribution to its record-breaking results.

"We look forward to extending this success going into 2012," said JK Shin, president and head of Samsung's mobile communications business, wholly unsurprisingly.

Phone wars

The results will be one in the eye for HTC, which recently revised its profit estimates for the year down by 20 per cent, and reported a 30 per cent drop in handset sales in November.

If we were being flippant, we'd say Samsung was the Ebeneezer Scrooge to HTC's Bob Cratchit here – who knows, maybe JK Shin will show up at Peter Chou's house on 25 December with the biggest goose a street urchin could find him and toys for Tiny Tim.

Either that, or the two companies will continue to battle for smartphone dominance in 2012; we're expecting big quad-core things from both manufacturers to launch at CES 2012 and Mobile World Congress 2012. It might not be as heart-warming but we'll get some great new phones out of it so we'll be happy, at least.

From Reuters via Phone Arena

News Editor (UK)

Former UK News Editor for TechRadar, it was a perpetual challenge among the TechRadar staff to send Kate (Twitter, Google+) a link to something interesting on the internet that she hasn't already seen. As TechRadar's News Editor (UK), she was constantly on the hunt for top news and intriguing stories to feed your gadget lust. Kate now enjoys life as a renowned music critic – her words can be found in the i Paper, Guardian, GQ, Metro, Evening Standard and Time Out, and she's also the author of 'Amy Winehouse', a biography of the soul star.