T-Mobile calls Samsung Galaxy S III best-selling device

T-Mobile USA declared Samsung's Galaxy S III its all-time best-selling device. The crowing came just ahead of T-Mobile announcing new smartphones for the holiday shopping season from Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and LG Electronics.

T-Mobile will exclusively launch the Nokia Lumia 810.

T-Mobile confirmed the Galaxy S III sales record on its official Twitter account. However, the carrier did not provide specific device sales figures. T-Mobile began selling the Galaxy S III this summer.

While impressive, the S III sales tally at T-Mobile is not entirely surprising. T-Mobile remains the only Tier 1 carrier not to offer Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone directly, and has banked on strong sales of Android devices like the S III to buoy its smartphone numbers. For Samsung, the accomplishment is one indication that its strategy of pushing its gadgets to as many U.S. carriers as possible is paying off, since even if other carriers push the iPhone or handsets running Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone its Galaxy line will find avenues for sales.

The announcement came as T-Mobile unveiled new smartphones for the holiday season. T-Mobile said it would be the exclusive provider of Nokia's Lumia 810, one of its new Windows Phone 8 smartphones. The 810 appears to be a variant of the Lumia 820, which Nokia introduced last month. The device sports a 4.3-inch OLED WVGA Clear Black display, 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera and wireless charging. The Lumia 810 also supports Nokia's City Lens augmented reality platform as well as Nokia Music. T-Mobile did not provide pricing but said the gadget will be available in the "coming weeks."

For Nokia, the deal represents another exclusive carrier arrangement. AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) said last week  it will exclusively launch Nokia's (NYSE:NOK) flagship Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 smartphone and will also carry the mid-range Lumia 820. There are also rumors that Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) will soon launch a variant of the Lumia 820. The more U.S. carriers Nokia can get to support its devices the better for its sales prospects, but the exclusive arrangements could potentially cut into sales if consumers want, say, the Lumia 920 but do not want to switch to AT&T.

In addition to the Lumia 810, T-Mobile also announced the upcoming availability of the LG Optimus L9. Part of LG's "L-Series" of phones, the super thin (0.36 inches) devices runs on Android 4.0, sports a dual-core 1 GHz processor,  4.5-inch qHD Corning Gorilla Glass 2 display, a 5-megapixel camera and LG's QuickMemo software, which lets users add commentary, notes and drawings to screenshots with a few swipes of a finger and then share them with via social media and email.

For more:
- see this T-Mobile tweet
- see this The Verge article
- see this separate The Verge article
- see this T-Mobile/Nokia release
- see this T-Mobile/LG release

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