Samsung counters iPhone 5S with a golden Galaxy S4

Samsung counters iPhone 5S with a golden Galaxy S4

 

• Samsung has unveiled two limited edition Galaxy S4 smartphones in gold and pink, and gold and brown colour combinations

• They will currently only be available to the United Arab Emirates market

• Last week a scarcity of the gold-colored iPhone 5S models drove ebay auction prices for the coveted devices into the five figures

It seems that Samsung follow the Apple rumour mill just as closely as we do, as TechCrunch said: "planning and announcing a smartphone cannot happen in two weeks. Not even for Samsung.

"Samsung likely knew with a high degree of certainty that a gold iPhone was in the pipeline. Samsung had plenty of time to prep their own model.

Two weeks after Apple's September 10th reveal of a champagne-colored iPhone, Samsung is launching its own golden phone in the shape of a new Gold Edition Galaxy S4. There are two options, Gold Pink or Gold Brown, which Samsung is proudly showing off on its United Arab Emirates social media outlets. It's doubtful that these handsets will make it to a global distribution — they look to be targeted at the same well-off demographic that might consider buying a handset like the Nokia Oro — but the important thing is that Samsung can now claim to also have a golden flagship product.

Update: Samsung has clarified that the first golden GS4 units arrived in stores on September 8th, therefore it technically preempted the golden iPhone by two days.

A scarcity of the gold-colored iPhone 5S models drove ebay auction prices for the coveted items into the five figures.

On Monday this week, a single, unopened and unlocked 16GB gold Apple iPhone, which retails for around $200 in the U.S. on contract, sold for $10,100 (£6,295) following a brief but bitter bidding war on the auction website.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said: 'This is our best iPhone launch yet - more than nine million new iPhones sold―a new record for first weekend sales.'

'The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible and while we’ve sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly.'

But according to Forbes, unless you ordered your gold iPhone in the first hour it became available Friday, it won’t be shipping until October.

Apple also took a gamble on demand for novel coloured smartphone with the launch of its iPhone 5C handsets.

Much like the unexpected demand of the gold iPhone 5S handset, the pink version of the cheaper handset has been a big success.

Sales figures show Apple's gamble with colourful iPhones is paying off, with the pink model accounting for 46 per cent of sales - almost more than all the other colours combined

Reports from iPhoneStockChecker.co.uk found that the blue model is the second most-popular device, accounting for 32 per cent of 5C sales.

In third place is green, at 12 per cent, followed by white at 9 per cent and yellow brings up the rear, accounting for just 1 per cent of sales.

Apple could be looking to take this strategy into the iPad part of the business. Experts have already said there could be at least two new iPads released as soon as next month.

which phone u like to buy samsung or iphone????