Over 5mn Samsung Galaxy Note II units sold since launch

On November 2, Samsung had announced that the Galaxy Note II had surpassed 3 million sales worldwide since the launch of the phablet in September. In what has come as better news for the South Korean tech giant, global sales of the Galaxy Note II have now exceeded 5 million units.

In early November, Samsung had announced that the 5.5-inch smartphone is selling at three times the pace of the original Galaxy Note. 10 million units of the Galaxy Note had been sold across the globe since it was launched. To know more about the Galaxy Note II, read our review of this stylus-enabled smartphone.

Over 5 million Galaxy Note II handsets sold worldwide

The Samsung Galaxy Note II features most of the specifications that had been written about in the past but Samsung has thrown in a new feature that can potentially change the way mobile phones are used nowadays. Apart from the fact that it features the Android v4.1 (Jelly Bean) out of the box, and is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, the major talking point about the Galaxy Note II is that it features an all-new Air View feature.

Here is a quick look at the specifications of the Galaxy Note II:

• 5.5-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with a 1280 x 720 pixel density
• 4G LTE, EDGE, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi HT40, NFC
• GPS with GLONASS and A-GPS support
• Bluetooth v4.0 with USB 2.0 Host
• 8 megapixel AF/ Touchfocus camera, 1.9MP VT Camera, BSI front-facing camera
• 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions, all with expandable support up to 64GB
• 2GB RAM
• MHL for AV out

Samsung currently sits at pole position as the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. The Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II are two of the brand's hottest selling devices this year, and this has made Samsung's smartphone sales look good. A recent report by Yonhap, a financial analysis company, estimates that Samsung will have a good fourth quarter, and will sell over 60 million smartphones.

Samsung's smartphone shipments are likely to exceed 60 million units in the fourth quarter of this year, proving its prowess in the world's mobile phone market, despite its ongoing patent war with Apple, an investment bank said on Wednesday.

UBS, an investment bank and financial analysis company, estimated that Samsung Electronics will sell 61.5 million units of smartphones in the October-December period, up 5 percent from an estimated 58 million in the previous quarter. The number could reach as high as 63 million depending on the sell-through, or the volume that is actually sold to consumers.

The report stated that a major contributor to these numbers will be the Galaxy Note II that was released in September. Nicolas Gaudois, an analyst at UBS said, “The Galaxy Note 2 has shipped 3 million units in its first five weeks of sales, with sell-through strong in Asia and Europe, and the U.S. gathering pace post-launch. We hence forecast 7 million Galaxy Note 2, compared to our initial expectation of 5 million for the fourth quarter.”

The report goes on to add that the high sales of the Samsung Galaxy Note II may affect the impact of the latest Apple flagship smartphone, the iPhone 5. The Swiss bank notes that the flagship Galaxy S III, which hit the market in late May, continues to show strong performance, with more than 5.5 million units sold in October alone. "We see a limited ramp-down, if any at all, for the Galaxy S III, and we feel comfortable with our 15 million estimate for the fourth quarter of 2012," Gaudois said.