Ten million Galaxy S phones sold, Nexus S overclocked

In July last year, Samsung boldly claimed it would sell 10 million Galaxy S phones, a claim met with skepticism from some given the wide range of Android handsets on the market.

Less than seven months later, the electronics maker has apparently met that target, announcing the achievement via Samsung Tomorrow. According to a handy map, also provided by Samsung Tomorrow, the bulk of Galaxy S units - four million, to be exact - were shifted in North America, while 2.5 million phones were sold in Europe and two million in Asia.

Samsung president and head of mobile communications business JK Shin marked the occasion with a lofty statement linking the success of the Galaxy S line with the company's 22-year ''heritage'' in the mobile industry.

''It is the realization of our concept of ‘the Smart Life’ - we wanted to makes users’ lives more convenient, more exciting, and more integrated. Today’s milestone shows that we have succeeded: 10 million Galaxy S users around the world are living the Smart Life,'' he said.

Yet with most Galaxy S users yet to receive an upgrade to Android 2.2 (Froyo) - despite the fact that Google's mobile OS has already moved on to version 2.3 (Gingerbread) - Samsung shouldn't go patting themselves on the back too heartily just yet. According to Samsung USA's official Twitter account, US users should expect a helping of Froyo ''as soon as possible'', which is essentially what the company has been saying for several months. The latest Gartner research, released last November, showed Samsung held around 17 per cent of the global mobile phone market, down from nearly 20 per cent the year before.

Meantime, the already-speedy Nexus S, also manufactured by Samsung, has been given a tidy overclock courtesy of a new kernel for rooted devices. The ''Nexus S Trinity Kernel'', put together by ''Team Whiskey'' over at the xda-developers forums, boosts the phone's processor from the stock 1GHz to a snappy 1.3GHz. With few Nexus S owners complaining about the phone's ability to handle most tasks at stock speeds, the hacked kernel is more of a ''because we could'' project, and may as usual void the user's warranty. It also disables the phone's Bluetooth capabilities, though a fix is in the works.