Global shipments of smartphones exceeded a quarterly record of 250 million in the third quarter, representing a year-on-year growth of almost 49 per cent compared to last year, said a report.

Among the mobile giants, Samsung now accounts for a third of all smartphones shipped with an estimated 85 million units – a record for the company, according to leading hi-tech mobile analysts Juniper Research.

Samsung had reported a 26 per cent growth in profit, driven by an increase of smartphone sales in both Premium and Economy segments.

The iPhone accounted for 1 in 7 smartphone shipments during the third quarter, representing a quarterly growth of 8 per cent from last quarter, said Juniper in its latest research.

The company forecasts that Apple and Samsung will continue to dominate the global market, shipping 17 per cent more smartphones in 2018 than were shipped globally by all vendors in 2012.

These top end players are expected to continue to witness impressive growth next quarter due to seasonality, however Juniper expects a steady decline in growth thereafter especially in maturing markets. At this point differentiation becomes vital to continued success, and the strategies used to achieve differentiation need to be different for maturing and emerging markets.

Juniper notes that increasingly vendors will be required to anticipate customers ‘future needs’, whilst at the same time creating ‘new needs’ that customers will find desirable. This will become of paramount importance as new customers become a scarce resource and vendor churn becomes a major factor.

According to Juniper, Nokia shipped a record 8.8 million Lumia devices and nearly six million Asha smartphones in the third quarter together exceeding LG for the second time this year.

LG maintained its smartphone shipment pace compared to the previous quarter, shipping another 12 million in the third quarter, representing a 24 per cent increases year-over-year.

BlackBerry’s recent results – which run to a different financial schedule – are expected to see them ship just under 4 million smartphones in third quarter, said the Juniper report.

In the three months to the end of August 2010, BlackBerry clocked up some 12 million smartphone shipments and more than $4.6 billion in revenues; in its most recent quarter, smartphone shipments had fallen to a paltry 3.7 million against revenues of less than $1.6 billion; the costs of sales were now exceeding the revenues earned, said Juniper Research in ist report.

Huawei, ZTE and LG together shipped over 37 million smartphones in third quarter, accounting for a combined market share of 15 per cent, it added.-TradeArabia News Service