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Samsung's Galaxy Beam - an Android smart phone with a built-in projector.

Samsung on top of the world thanks to Galaxy

Posted: 27th April 2012

Nokia, which has been the world’s top producer of mobile phones for the past 14 years, has been overtaken by Samsung. And the South Korean electronics giant has also topped Apple’s share in the smartphones market.

Samsung’s success has been attributed to the popularity of its Galaxy smartphones, and along with Apple, it now controls 90% of the high-end smartphone market.

Robert Yi, senior vice-president, said he expected continued momentum in Samsung’s mobile phone business, helped by an upgraded model of its soon-to-be launched flagship Galaxy S. “We anticipate very strong demand for Galaxy S III,” he said.

Samsung has reported a record quarterly profit and said it predicts global handset sales to increase slightly. Net profit soared 81% from a year earlier to $4.5bn in the January-April period with operating profit nearly doubling.

And Samsung shares – which have climbed to 29% already this year - rose by 2.9% on the back of the news, giving the group a market value of $191bn.

Finland’s Nokia, by contrast, has been struggling in the face of fierce competition and poor sales of its Windows-based Lumia phones, and last week it posted a first-quarter operating loss of $1.8bn.

Samsung sold 93.5m handsets in the first quarter for a 25.4% share of the global mobile phone market. That surpassed Nokia’s 22.5% market share on sales of 82.7m phones, and Apple’s 9.5% slice, the Financial Times reported.

In smartphones, Samsung sold 44.5m units in the first quarter, taking 30.6% of the market while Apple sold 35.1m units with a 24.1% market share, according to Strategy Analytics.

"Samsung’s smartphone success in the first quarter was the flipside of Nokia’s disappoint,” Matt Evans, CLSA analyst, said in a recent report.

Analysts expect Samsung to face tougher competition in the third quarter, however, as Apple launches its iPhone 5 and Chinese handset makers such as ZTE and Huawei continue efforts to shift into production of higher-end smartphones.