Samsung to ship more than 60M smartphones in Q4, says analyst The Korean smartphone maker could ship as many as 61.5 million smartphones, a 5 percent gain from the prior quarter, says a UBS analyst.

Samsung should enjoy a profitable quarter if one analyst's smartphone projections are on the money.

The company is expected to ship 61.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, said UBS analyst Nicolas Gaudois, as reported by the Yonhap News agency. That number would prove a 5 percent gain over the 58 million estimated shipments for the third quarter.

And the figure could grow as high as 63 million, the analyst forecast, depending on how many units are actually sold to consumers. The gain in shipments will be triggered in large part by the Galaxy Note 2, which Samsung released in September.

"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," Gaudois said in his investors note, according to Yonhap. "We hence forecast 7 million Galaxy Note 2, compared to our initial expectation of 5 million for the fourth quarter."

Samsung's Galaxy S3 will also be a major factor in the higher shipments.

Unveiled in May, the new Galaxy S flagship brought in unit sales of more than 5.5 million just in October. Despite concerns that the iPhone 5 might steal away some business, the analyst sees little effect on S3 sales.

"We see a limited ramp-down, if any at all, for the Galaxy S3, and we feel comfortable with our 15 million estimate for the fourth quarter of 2012," Gaudois added.

Samsung and Apple virtually own the smartphone market. The two have been duking it out for the top spot, but recent reports from IDC and other research firms show Samsung still clearly in the lead over its archrival.

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Apple Gains On Samsung In U.S. Mobile Phone Market Share, Lands Second Overall For The First Time

For the first time in the history of comScore’s MobiLens U.S. mobile market share report, Apple has come in second overall among handset OEMs. Apple grew its U.S. market share by 1.5 percentage points from 16.3 to 17.8 percent in the three-month period ending October 2012, according to the report. During the same period, Samsung also saw its share grow, but only by 0.7 percentage points, from 25.6 to 26.3 percent. Apple seems to have begun narrowing the gap on the back of the iPhone 5, which went on sale in the U.S. towards the middle of the period covered by comScore’s latest report.

Screen Shot 2012-12-01 at 8.34.07 AMApple climbed to second over LG, which saw a dip of 0.8 percentage points from 18.4 to 17.6 percent during the period. Motorola and HTC rounded out the top five, both experiencing slight drops and finishing the quarter with 11 and 6 percent of the market, respectively. Another key metric comScore found, and one which helps explain what finally pushed Apple into second place, is nearly 52 percent of all subscribers in the U.S. were on smartphones, up 6 percent from the previous quarter. Apple only sells smartphones, so its fortunes rising in lockstep with the decreasing popularity of feature phones makes perfect sense.

As mentioned, Apple also released the iPhone 5 during the quarter covered by this report. We’ve already seen from Kantar Worldpanel that the iPhone 5 propelled Apple back to the top of the U.S. smartphone charts, and it’s likely that device is also the reason Apple now comes in at number two overall among handset makers of all stripes.

Platform market share still shows Google with a commanding lead, and one which grew during the period, from 52.2 percent of subscribers to 53.6 percent. Apple also gained, rising 0.9 percentage points from 33.4 percent to 34.3 percent, while RIM was the biggest loser among the top five with a decline of 1.7 percentage points. Microsoft and Symbian round out the top five, both with minor drops in overall share.

The next quarter will be an interesting one to watch for. It covers November through January, which means that we’ll see the holiday effect on all OEMs. It also should include LG’s sales of the Nexus 4 device, which seems to be remarkably popular, or at least in very short supply. Depending on how LG allocates supply among its Optimus G and Nexus devices, we could see it claw back into second, since the gap is still quite narrow, but it has to contend with Apple’s holiday iPhone sales, which are generally very strong.

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