Last year Apple fanboys anticipated iPhone 5 to be released in October 2011. But Apple released iPhone 4S instead of a whole new device. Apple iPhone 4S featured minor hardware and software updates over iPhone 4. Apple fans were disappointed but iPhone 4S picked up pace for its upgraded camera and voice assistant Siri. And now, after looking at sales chart of iPhone 4S, we even doubt whether iPhone 5 could have been so popular.

Apple iPhone 4S is the best selling smartphone at top U.S. network carriers, except T-Mobile (whose network doesn't support iPhone). At T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy S2 is the top selling smartphone.

Android fans said that iPhone 4S lacks LTE compatibility and it might not fare well on Verizon Wireless, which has a solid demand in market for it's almost complete 4G coverage. But the prediction turned out to be false and iPhone 4S surprised us with its strong sales on Verizon by beating Android-powered 4G smartphones like Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Droid Razr Maxx.

But more surprisingly, at AT&T and Sprint, all the other smartphones combined could not cross iPhone 4S sales.

Reportedly, Apple sold 35.5 million iPhone units in Q4 2011. AT&T sold 7.6 million iPhones and Sprint activated 1.8 million units of Apple iPhone. Samsung being the top rival to Apple is second most selling smartphone manufacturer on AT&T and Sprint. Over at Verizon, Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is at the second spot, nabbing the second place from Samsung Galaxy Nexus after its release. Samsung Galaxy Note is also faring well and Samsung is close to Apple's figures as the Korean tech giant reportedly sold 34 million units in last quarter of 2011.

However, market stats show that iPhone 4 sales have cooled down. Prior to the release of iPhone 5, which is expected to debut in summer/fall, iPhone 4S was also expected to enter a cold zone. But it is surprising to see that it is still a hot product in the market. Recently iPhone 4S also topped smartphone sales in Japan.

(reported by Johnny Wills, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)