Galaxy Note 2 outsells iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3

The last two years have been phenomenal for the phone industry. We have seen some coveted smartphones with powerful processors, solid hardware, larger displays and feature-rich OSes.

The last couple of months, we saw a plethora of really strong contenders in the high-end mobile space with the likes of the iPhone 5, Galaxy Note 2, HTC One X, Lumia 920, to name a few. But the question is which one of these is taking the market by a storm. So, we tried asking companies which is their best-selling smartphone. Obviously, we didn't get a reply from most of them. Now, considering that there is a huge gadget bazaar in the form of the grey market, which sells devices probably a tad cheaper, we asked the grey market punters too about the device that is getting them their highest sales.

Samsung Galaxy Note II preferred over the iPhone 5

Samsung told us that the Note 2 and the Galaxy S3 are doing very good sales in India. Well, we would agree with them, as the grey market vendors sing to a similar tune as the popular phablet, Note 2, seems to be the best-selling device in the market. So, it’s the phablet that is attracting users with its large display and powerful performance, selling for Rs. 35,500. In fact, we were told that it is more in demand than the iPhone 5 and has been the highest selling smartphone as of last week.

According to the grey market vendors, the iPhone 5 takes the second place followed by Samsung’s Galaxy S3 (selling for Rs. 31,000) taking the third place for the best-selling smartphones. They, however, weren't too keen to divulge daily sales figures, or any other sales data. HTC's new releases this season – HTC One X+ and the WP8 running HTC 8X – are moving a fair amount of pieces, but not as much as the top three. Nokia's latest flagship offering seems to be wowing the audience and our sources claim that there are many enquiries about the Lumia range; however, the phones (Lumia 920 and Lumia 820) don't seem to be in stock in the grey market because of the official launch.

Speaking of phones that have not been launched in India, the Galaxy Nexus is still holding strong and at Rs 22,000 (latest street price), is outselling its newer sibling, the LG Nexus 4. This could be because of the rather pricey tag (Rs 36,000) that the Nexus 4 sports.

While the numbers from the grey market cannot be considered as conclusive sales data, they do provide empirical and anecdotal evidence about which smartphone is dominating the market. Samsung has been been able to take advantage of the Android ecosystem and has mounted a serious challenge to Apple's domination of the smartphone world. Samsung's new beefy hardware coupled with the latest iteration of the Android OS from Google has resulted in it emerging as the No. 1 smartphone manufaturer in a number of key markets, including India. 

Image credit: Harshad Gujare