Did Apple Just Help Samsung Sell a Ton of Smartphones?

On Friday, a California jury ruled in favor of Apple

and ordered Samsung to pay

for infringing on the iPhone maker's patents. Many critics have been quick to

, but there appears to be an interesting side effect that no one saw coming: increased sales of the Galaxy S III.

According to Trip Chowdhry, the managing director of equity research at Global Equities Research, customers "rushed" to buy Samsung's flagship phone after the verdict was announced. Chowdhry investigated multiple retail outlets -- including Costco

, AT&T

, Sprint

, and Verizon

-- to get an update on how the Galaxy S III performed this weekend. Two out of three Costco stores were completely sold out of the T-Mobile and AT&T versions of the phone. The third location had the T-Mobile version in stock, but was sold out of the AT&T version. All five of the AT&T stores that Chowdhry investigated experienced "significant sales" of the device, which has been outselling the iPhone 4S this month. The Galaxy S III has also outsold Apple's smartphone at all five of the Sprint stores and all three of the Verizon stores that Chowdhry examined. However, only two of those Sprint locations had completely sold out of the Samsung-built device. This is an intriguing outcome for Samsung, which had already produced smartphones that collectively outsold the iPhone

. While it is unlikely that consumers decided to buy a Galaxy S III on the verdict alone, (which affects older Samsung devices), it is interesting to see where consumer desire is headed as we

of the iPhone 5. The demand for the iPhone 4S' successor is

. Competitors are so concerned about the iPhone 5's arrival that they are doing

to

. Once the iPhone 5 is released, the world will be watching to see if the Galaxy S III can continue to compete successfully. Regardless of current or future sales, Chowdhry

that the jury verdict will lead to a cross-licensing deal between Apple and Samsung.