Samsung Galaxy Note II Passes 5m Global Sales

Samsung's Galaxy Note II has passes the 5,000,000 sales mark, the company has announced, racking up two million of those sales in under a month. The new milestone comes just a few weeks after Samsung said it had shifted 3m Note II handsets, eagerly crowing about the 5.5-inch smartphone/tablet hybrid after some critics said a device of its size simply wouldn't sell.

Instead, global sales have flourished, and while the Note II is still well behind sales of Samsung's more mainstream flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, a recent debut in North America has broadened the market for the stylus-enabled device. The handset was first put on the market five months ago.

As always with these sales numbers, it's usually the case that Samsung is talking about its own sales to distributors, carriers, and retailers, not necessarily to end-users. However, although that means there aren't necessarily 5m Note II units out there in users' hands, it's a good indication of how much demand for the sizable smartphone those vendors expect to see.

Samsung "will do our best to continue to introduce continuous product innovation" one spokesperson said of the Note II sales. The company is tipped to be revealing a new flagship, anecdotally known as the Galaxy S 4, in February next year, complete with an updated quadcore processor and 13-megapixel camera.