J.K. Shin says Samsung will sell more than 20 million units of the Samsung GALAXY Note II

What device sold in excess of 10 million units for Samsung, and in the process surprisingly became one of the hottest devices of the year while expanding the popularity of its category? If you guessed the Samsung Galaxy S III, you're absolutely...wrong. Well, yeah, the latter device had sold 20 million units in 100 days, but the success of the model was no surprise given the way that the Samsung Galaxy S II became known as the best Android phone of all time (a title which now belongs to its sequel).

Actually, the phone we had in mind is the Samsung GALAXY Note. With its 5.3 inch screen, the combination phone/tablet expanded the "phablet" category and surprisingly joined with the Samsung Galaxy S III as a potent 1-2 punch for the Korean manufacturer. No one was sure how phone buyers would respond to a phone with such a large screen being produced by a mainstream handset manufacturer. The demand for the device was so strong that Samsung quickly put together a sequel, the Samsung GALAXY Note II with a slightly larger 5.5 inch screen.

According to the head of Samsung's mobile unit, J.K. Shin, in 2012 the Samsung GALAXY Note II will sell 20 million units to double the amount sold by its predecessor, which had been launched last November. Rumors in South Korea were that Samsung would push up the launch of the device in order to beat  the Apple iPhone 5 to market in South Korea. Shin shot that rumor down, confirming that the Samsung GALAXY Note II will be launched in October. Samsung introduced the model during the Samsung Unpacked event just prior to IFA 2012 in Berlin last month.

source: YonhapNews via SammuHub

UPDATE:In a longer excerpt of Shin's comments, the executive tells Yonhap News that Samsung is looking for 30 million units in sales for the Samsung Galaxy S III. That would be quite a feat. The Samsung Galaxy S II sold "only" 20 million units.