Samsung and Amazon Report Big Sales that Rival Apple - East Idaho News
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Samsung and Amazon Report Big Sales that Rival Apple

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GETTY B 050711 SamsungLogo?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1335526948037PARK JI-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Move over Apple.  You have some competition.

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics has become the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, with soaring sales of mobile devices based on Google’s Android software.  The Galaxy Note and Galaxy S2 were both hot sellers.

Samsung’s first-quarter profit soared 82 percent as the company’s broad range of products outsold Apple’s iPhone.  Samsung is a giant corporation, with quarterly sales of $40 billion, up more than 20 percent from the year before.

Amazon is another Apple rival and it’s spending big to boost market share.  While profits dropped 35 percent for the first quarter, sales rose 34 percent.

The company continues to expand beyond its roots as an online seller of books, saying the Kindle Fire tablet computer was its best-selling item and helped lift revenue from digital movies and books.

“Customers are buying a lot of content,” says Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak.  “You’re seeing that accelerate.”

Amazon shares shot up 13 percent after its quarterly profits were announced.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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