Samsung break smartphone sales record in Q2

The official numbers aren't out just yet, but according to Reuters, Samsung might have broken the smartphone sales record in what is otherwise considered a pretty slow quarter.

Reuters polled 41 analysts and, based on their estimates, claim that the Korean company shipped 50 million smartphones in Q2. That would make Samsung an undisputed smartphone leader as the second-placed Apple reportedly experienced a drop in its sales and shipped 30 million units compared to 35 million in Q1.

Undoubtedly the strong performance of Samsung is helped by the launch of its flagship device - the Galaxy S III, which first became available at the end of May. With the smartphone only finding its way to the US shelves in Q3 we should probably expect more good news from Samsung in three months' time.

As for Apple - the demand for the iPhone was naturally weaker in Q2 as it's starting to show signs of age (the 4S was already 8 months old at the end of the quarter). There are also rumors that this has forced Apple to move the launch of the iPhone 5 to an earlier date, reportedly at the start of August, instead of the planned October release.

	Mean	Median	High	Low	No	Yr ago	Change	Prev.Q
Global Smartphones	151	151	163	126	17	89.0	69.7	145
Global Cellphones	405	400	422	375	25	365	11.0	398
Samsung -Smart devices	95.8 50.0	94.5 50.0	105 55.0	88.0 46.0	12 9	70.0 17.0	36.9 194.1	93.8 42.2
Nokia -Smart devices --Windows	80.1 10.4 3.71	81.0 11.0 4.00	90.0 13.0 5.00	70.0 5.00 2.00	40 33 24	88.5 17.0 n/a	-9.5 -38.8 n/a	82.7 11.9 2.00
Apple	30.5	30.0	37.0	26.0	16	20.3	50.2	35.1
ZTE	24.3	24.5	29.0	21.0	6	13.0	86.9	19.1
LG	14.4	14.0	17.0	13.0	12	24.8	-41.9	13.7
Huawei	17.7	16.0	23.0	14.0	3	11.9	48.7	10.8
HTC	9.52	9.50	11.0	8.30	13	12.1	-21.3	7.70
Motorola	9.32	9.00	11.0	8.00	14	11.0	-15.3	8.90
Sony	8.11	8.00	10.0	5.70	12	7.60	6.7	7.90
RIM	7.99	8.00	11.0	6.00	16	13.0	-38.5	9.90

The Reuters report also points at Samsung as the World's number one cellphone manufacturer in general, a title the company holds for a second consecutive quarter after overtaking Nokia in Q1. According to the analysts the Koreans sold a total of 95.8 million mobile phones (that's smartphonesand featurephones) during Q2, compared to the 80.1 million that Nokia managed.

The bit of good news for Nokia is that the company managed to ship 3.71 million Windows Phone smartphones, which is a more than 85% increase over the 2 million in the first three months of the year. If the Finns manage to retain the same level of growth through the year they might be back in the smartphone game come the holiday quarter.