Samsung's phones more in-demand than Apple's, analysts say

In the last three months, Samsung's handsets have been more in-demand than Apple's, according to industry analysts.

Strategy Analytics says Samsung shipped 50.5 million smart phones in the last quarter, while IDC pegs the figure at 50.2 million, Business Insider reports. Last week, Apple announced its third quarter results, which said it had sold 26 million iPhones in the last three months. But I have to take issue with these figures.

The Samsung stats are shipments, which show how many phones Samsung punted out to resellers, whereas Apple's results measure hard sales. Putting shipments up against sales isn't exactly comparing like with like. And Samsung's results only reflect estimated shipments at that, but considering how close both estimated figures are, we can accept them as fairly accurate. They do also show that there's a huge demand for Samsung's mobiles.

Samsung has sold 10 million of its flagship Galaxy S3 handset, and estimates that figure will hit 19 million by the autumn.

More telling maybe is the fact Samsung has now overtaken Nokia in terms of market share, to be number one in the phone market. It's estimated Samsung shipped 93 million phones (smart and dumb ones alike) in the last three months, helping it account for 25.7 per cent of all handsets. This is up from 20.7 per cent in the same period last year, and means Samsung is now the biggest phone manufacturer in the world -- quite an achievement.

Obviously Samsung offers far more models of handsets at differing prices, whereas Apple has just a few generations of iPhone. Apple's mobile sales were lower than expected in this period, though that could well be because everyone is holding out for the next iPhone, which is expected around October.

Does Samsung deserve its position as top dog of the mobile world? Or can Apple topple it? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.