Rebecca Greenfield

Apple has lost its number one position with the world’s most popular phone, ceding the title to rival Samsung and its Galaxy S3, but we don’t imagine it will stay that way for too long. Last quarter, Samsung sold 18 million S3s, compared to the 16.2 million iPhone 4S phones Apple sold worldwide, according to research from Strategy Analytics. With two weeks left in that quarter, however, Apple announced its iPhone 5, which presumably ate into the sales of its 4S. The anticipation for the phone hurt 4S sales the quarter before that, said Apple. Presumably the same thing happened the next quarter, which saw fewer phone sales again. The 5 didn’t come out until the final nine days of that period. Once it was released, Apple sold 5 million iPhones in its first weekend out—a record. And that was with supply issues out of China, according to Foxconn. The supplier said it was shipping “far fewer” new iPhones than it needed to meet demand, said Chairman Terry Gou. “Market demand is very strong, but we just can’t really fulfill Apple’s requests,” he told reporters, notes The Wall Street Journal’s Aries Poon. If these supply issues don’t get in the way for the holiday season, we imagine after one quarter of 5 sales, Apple will have its world title back.