Samsung Posts Record 3Q Earnings, Carves 35% Share As No. 1 Smartphone Seller

Samsung Electronics (Seoul: 005930) shipped 56.9 million smartphones in the third quarter, carving a 35 percent share in the global market of 162 million smartphones. That makes it the world's No. 1 smartphone maker,

The Korean electronics giant said it expects to smartphone sales another 35 percent each year.

Samsung reported third-quarter net income of a record 8.12 trillion won (US $7.42 billion) on record revenue of 52.2 trillion won.

Samsung reported "solid demand growth" for its new smartphones, including the Galaxy S III but didn't provide specific details.

Market researcer Strategy Analytics estimated Samsung shipped nearly 57 million units in the quarter, double the year-earlier amount, to carve its No. 1 share of 35 percent.

In second place was Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), of Cupertino, Calif., the world's most valuable technology company, which sold nearly 27 million iPhones in the quarter, about 57 percent more than the year-earlier.

“This was the largest number of units ever shipped by a smartphone vendor in a single quarter,” said Neil Mawston, executive director of Strategy Analytics, of Samsung's progress.

The data establish the two rivals as the undisputed leaders of the worldwide smartphone market, at least for now.

“Samsung and Apple combined now account for over half of all smartphones shipped worldwide, up from around one-third a year ago,” Neil Shah, an analyst at Strategy Analytics told VentureBeat. “Volumes have polarized around those two brands.”

Finland's Nokia Oyj (NYSE: NOK), whose Lumia phones runs on the Windows 7 OS from Microsoft(Nasdaq: MSFT) took just 4 percent of the market with 6.3 million units, compared with 16.8 million units a year ago.

“Nokia has now slipped outside the top three global smartphone rankings for the first time,” added Shaw.

Shares of Samsung fell 35,000 won in Seoul on Friday, closing at 1.287 million won. Shares of Apple fell $8.69 to $600.05 in midday trading.