Samsung Instinct confirms its iPhone-killer prowess

by Stevie Smith - Jun 30 2008, 11:14

With Apple’s newly enhanced 3G iPhone handset heading for its retail rendezvous on July 11, it would appear that Samsung Electronics and Sprint Nextel are posting pretty decent sales figures for the new Instinct, one of oh-so-many supposed ‘iPhone killers’ heading to market since the emergence of Apple’s trendy touch-screen device.

According to Walter Piecyk, an analyst with Pali Research, the touch-screen Samsung Instinct has performed so well at retail since its launch on June 20 that Sprint Nextel Corp., the third largest wireless carrier in the United States, is presently running low on unit availability.

Specifically, Bloomberg reports that Piecyk revealed the strong sales to investors after conducting availability research across 100 Sprint stores in the United States; during which he discovered that more than 10 percent of stores had no Instinct units left in stock, while 28 percent were down to just five units or less.

In terms of retail impact since Samsung launched its Instinct handset, Piecyk also noted that one of the stores he probed had sold in excess of 600 units, while another revealed demand had been high enough to shift 25 units in just a single hour. Isolating Los Angeles as the city with the highest demand for the Instinct, Piecyk also relayed that one particular store in the region presently has a waiting list of around 20 customers.

While not yet prepared to unveil official unit sales figures for the Instinct, Kansas-based Sprint Nextel claims the smartphone’s performance has been strong enough to see it “breaking records for the initial launch of any Sprint product.”

“We’re being very aggressive to work with our partners at Samsung to make sure our customers get them as fast as they can,” outlined Sprint spokeswoman Michelle Leff Mermelstein regarding weight of demand for the Instinct device.

Shaking free of Apple’s trend-conscious market dominance won’t be easy for rival smartphone manufacturers, but Samsung and Sprint are certainly hoping to prevent the Instinct’s favourable sales from being merely flash-in-the-pan launch performance, which a price tag of just $129.99 should support considering the $199.99 price that will come with the basic 8GB model of the 3G iPhone.

Other makes and models of smartphone also vying for consumer attention against the iPhone include the likes of the BlackBerry Bold 900 from Research In Motion (its first 3G handset), the Voyager and Vu from LG Electronics, the Touch Diamond from HTC, and the Xperia X1 from Sony Ericsson.

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