Report says Samsung smartphone sales might have surpassed those of the Apple iPhone

A new report from Neil Mawston, a London based analyst for Boston based Strategy Analytics, says that strong sales of Samsung smartphones, especially the Samsung Galaxy S II, quite possibly has allowed the Korean based firm to top Apple for global smartphone supremacy in Q2. Mawston says that Samsung sold between 18 and 21 million units in the three month period while Apple sold 20.3 million units of the iPhone 4 and Nokia shipped 16.7 million phones. If Samsung's sales come in at the top end of the estimated range, the company will beat out the Cupertino based firm. Including featurephones, Nokia remains the leader with 26% of the global market, compared with 20% for Samsung.

While the Samsung Galaxy S II has been the hottest smartphone available this summer, it has yet to launch in the U.S. although images believed to be the Sprint version of the model have recently been leaked. With a dual-core 1.2GHz processor under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy S II offers a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus screen with 480 x 800 resolution and 1GB of RAM on board. The back of the phone has an 8MP camera while there is a 2MP front-facing shooter as well. Five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg say that Samsung's second quarter earnings should double squarely from sales of the Galaxy S II. And if the device is finally released in the States for the third quarter, Samsung could report blow out figures for that period considering how much of a buzz the device has received in the U.S. from videos of the browser,hands on reports, and overseas reviews.

Mawston doesn't think that it is all green lights ahead for Samsung. The Korean based manufacturer might have to go up against a new Apple iPhone later this year and the latter is expected to have a more powerful chip for data and a more advanced camera, according to the Bloomberg story. The analyst says that Samsung will need to fight hard against a new Apple iPhone model to keep the strong momentum it has earned with the Samsung Galaxy S II.