With Galaxy Note 2, S3 in hand, Samsung to ship over 60 million smartphones in Q4 November 25, 2012Samsung MobileOff

November 25, 2012, 12:25 P.M., Sunday, New York local time — Amid growing smartphone demand in United States and other major markets, Samsung Group may ship over 60 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2012 courtesy of its Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 2 flagship phones and some mid-range, cheaper devices.

As expected, the continuous domination of the Korean giant Samsung in the smartphone market is still apparent this quarter. Apple is looking to ship 40 million iPhone 5 units this quarter but its biggest Asian competitor is expected to surpass that number by over 20 million, what’s up Nokia and RIM?

Let us serve you a refresher, Samsung was able to sell 20 million units of its Galaxy S3 smartphone within 100 days since its launch worldwide, the number then quickly escalated to 30 million in just two short months — numbers unheard of in the world Android smartphones. Numerous analysts even went as far as to say that sales of Samsung’s ‘previous flagship’ will remain strong until the end of this year, as a matter of fact, over 5.5 million Galaxy Note 2 units have been sold in the month of October alone, the Galaxy Note 2 phablet is basically just a cherry on top with sales topping 3 million in the first thirty days since the device’s launch.

According to UBS investment bank’s Nicolas Gaudois, Samsung will still be the reigning champion of the smartphone arena once the Winter season ceases with the aid of over 61.5 million smartphone bound for shipping, it’s worth noting that the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 smartphones will [unsurprisingly] be leading the pack as predicted due to the strong sales numbers of both quad-core monsters in the previous months. “The Galaxy Note 2 has shipped 3 million units in its first five weeks of sales, with sell-through strong in Asia and Europe, and the U.S. gathering pace post-launch. We hence forecast 7 million Galaxy Note 2, compared to our initial expectation of 5 million for the fourth quarter.” said Gaudois.

Numerous reports are also suggesting that Apple is expected to ship over 40 million of its iOS-laden iPhone 5 flagship which is a pretty impressive feat given that sales of the iPhone 4S is still pretty strong thanks to the drop in prices, the predicted iPhone 5 shipment figures could have been bigger since Apple is encountering low yields of the iPhone 5 which is largely due to troubles with component sources.

Korea Investment & Securities or KIS has previously reported that Samsung expected to dominate about 37 percent of the smartphone pie next year with a lovely increase of about 4.9 percent compared to this year’s 33.1. Apple on the other hand will see a growth of about 20.4 percent (a paltry 0.5 percent increase from 19.9 percent this year ) with the iPhone 5 seen as a key player for the slight bump in figures.

Archenemies aside, LG is not far from grabbing a sizable chunk of the smartphone pie with the help of its Android Jellybean-powered Nexus 4 smartphone made in partnership with search giant Google. Combining top-notch hardware with an irresistibly low price tag (50 percent cheaper than the Apple iPhone 5) has caused a buying frenzy which resulted to depleted stocks of the Nexus 4 [UK and US] in just a matter of minutes, numerous sources have so far predicted that about 4 million units of the Nexus 4 has been sold since its release earlier this month.

As for Nokia, the Finnish handset maker’s launch of its flagship Lumia 920 has so far seen a great start, scoring over 2.5 million orders in just a couple of weeks since its launch and sales are still growing stronger with prospective buyers having to face sold outs of their chosen colors in a lot of online stores. The Lumia 920 is the catalyst that Microsoft has been waiting for, its Windows phone 8 platform is finally gaining traction in the smartphone market and it’s only a matter of time before the Windows Store starts thriving.

Research in Motion isn’t exactly missing in action, the Canadian smartphone maker is set to introduce two new Blackberry 10-powered phones early next year with a couple of ‘surprises’ up its sleeves, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has been working non-stop to get things working smoothly but it’s unknown if the company will still be able to win back what it has lost to Samsung, Apple and Google.

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