Samsung Galaxy S III sales overtake iPhone 4S in US

This news may come as some respite for Samsung, which has had a lot to deal with in the last few weeks. Samsung Galaxy S III sales surpassed that of Apple's iPhone 4S in August, helping it become the top selling smartphone in the United States.

iPhone 4S sales in the US had been slowing down in anticipation of the new iPhone launch, and the Galaxy S III's excellent overall package has managed to capitalise on that. The lead, however, might not last long as Apple has already started sending out invites for its September 12 new iPhone launch event.

This news is coming from Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley, who constantly tracks with US retailers how a phone is performing. "We believe this is the first month since the iPhone 4S launched in October 2011 that it was not the top-selling smartphone in the U.S. market," Walkley stated.

Samsung Galaxy S III was the best-selling smartphone at T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon Wireless wireless carriers in America, with only AT&T selling more iPhones than Samsung Galaxy S III last month.

The news follows the recent $1 billion setback to Samsung in a patent lawsuit against Apple.

Samsung Galaxy S III was originally announced back in May and went on sale in the US in June. The smartphone has already crossed ten million sales globally.

Galaxy S III features a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD display, 1.4GHz quad-core processor, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.