Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Motorola (NYSE: MOT) have been ruling the Android roost since the original Droid phone was released. Now it looks like Samsung is stepping up to claim the title of biggest Android vendor on the planet. And Samsung's phones come with a little something extra for us investors.
The Samsung Galaxy S line of high-end Android phones is selling like hotcakes; one million units have been shipped to American points of sale since the original launch in mid-July. This may not impress anyone who's used to the utterly ridiculous sales that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) puts up every time a new iPhone hits the market, but multiply 1 million by the $500 unsubsidized asking price per phone (a rough proxy for the average selling price Samsung receives) and the numbers start to add up very quickly. This is in addition to the million-plus Galaxy S units sold outside U.S. borders as of July 13.
Furthermore, consider that only two out of six networks with announced plans to sell this device have actually gotten around to doing it so far -- Verizon, Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S), Cellular South, and U.S. Cellular (NYSE: USM) are all holding their horses for reasons unknown. Of those that are selling, T-Mobile is a relative dwarf in the market, and AT&T (NYSE: T) can't be bothered to actively promote any smartphone other than the iPhone until the exclusive deal runs out. Add it all up, and we may have a real challenger to the iPhone's total sales numbers when it's all said and done. The Droid era is giving way to a more balanced Android market.
While all of this is great news for Samsung, you probably don't have that Pink Sheets stock in your portfolio. But every Galaxy S ships with an OLED screen based on technology from Universal Display (Nasdaq: PANL). At 4 inches across, this screen is absolutely gargantuan by OLED standards. Samsung's mobile president, Shin Jong-Kyun, aims to ship 10 million Galaxy S phones by the end of the year. That would direct an unprecedented load of royalty revenues to Universal Display.
Thanks in large part to this phone meeting lofty ambitions, the floodgates are opening for Universal Display after years of "maybe later." Curiously, the stock is down on a generally blah market day, despite this significant piece of good news. Is this where you back up the truck and load up on shares? Send a thumbs-up CAPS rating Universal's way to complete the picture.
