Despite criticisms about its cheap plastic form factor and slow TouchWiz operating system, the Galaxy S5 has become Samsung’s fastest-selling smartphone to date. The device has been so successful that during its launch weekend earlier this month, it sold more units than the iPhone 5s.
That’s according to iQmetrix, which provides retail management software to the North American wireless industry and processes 14.5 million transactions every year. The company collected sales data from 15,000 stores for the Galaxy S5, the Galaxy S4, and the iPhone 5s and found that Samsung’s latest flagship had the best launch weekend of the three.
Between April 11 and April 13, the device accounted for 25% of the smartphones sold in the U.S., and 18% of those sold in Canada. In comparison, the iPhone 5s accounted for 18% of sales in the U.S. and 13% in Canada during its launch weekend between September 20 and September 22, 2013.
It’s hard to tell exactly what those percentages mean in sales figures, because iQmetrix doesn’t actually provide statistics for the number of handsets sold during these periods. But we’ve reached out to them for more details and we’ll update this post as we get them.
iQmetrix also found that the Galaxy S4 sold better than the iPhone 5 did in the six months prior to the launch of their successors. While iPhone 5 sales slowed progressively in the months preceding the iPhone 5s launch, the Galaxy S4 still saw sales peaks during the 2013 holiday season — and even as recent as January.
