Stefan Mileschin

Apple might have scored an own goal with its patent trial victory.

Forbes has found that sales of the Samsung Galaxy S III have shot through the roof since Apple took its rival to the cleaners.

According to Trip Chowdhry, the managing director of equity research at Global Equities Research, customers "rushed" to buy Samsung's flagship phone the moment the verdict was announced.

He said that two out of three Costco stores were completely sold out of the T-Mobile and AT&T versions of the phone. The third had the T-Mobile version in stock, but was sold out of the AT&T version.

Throughout the trial the Galaxy S III had outsold the iPhone 4S for this month.

Curiously the Galaxy S III was not actually part of the court case and Samsung appears to be able to sell it anyway. So what is going wrong?

Apple made a big marketing mistake. By banging on about how much Samsung copied it, the company told consumers that they could buy the same thing cheaper and from a good manufacturer.

During the court case, Apple had convinced the world, as it had the jury, that Samsung was making the same product, cheaper, and without needing to be locked into its Walled Garden of Delights.

A potential shopper comparing the two would arguably agree that they are similar enough - so why pay more for an Apple logo when times are hard?

Chowdhry thinks that the jury verdict will lead to a cross-licensing deal between Apple and Samsung and the whole thermonuclear war thing will be quietly shelved as being damaging to both companies.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/apple...g-galaxy-sales