Buoyed by strong demand for its Galaxy S III smartphone, Samsung will dominate its arch rival Apple in third quarter, according to a poll conducted by Reuters.
 
According to the poll, the broad range of its smartphones led by Galaxy SIII is likely to take its sales of smartphones to 55 million smartphones in the quarter with Apple expected to sell 26.6 million iPhones. 40 equity and telecom market analysts participated in the poll.
 
"The quarter will probably become a milestone for those phone makers striving to survive," the report quoted IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo as saying.

"It will expose the weakness of their performances compared to the mammoths of this industry, Apple and Samsung, which are expected to publish stellar results following the launch of the iPhone 5 and the success of the Galaxy SIII."

According to analysts, Apple, riding on high demand for recently launched iPhone 5, however, will be able to narrow the gap with Samsung in the fourth quarter.

But there is bad news for at HTC, LG Electronics and Research In Motion whose sales of handsets are likely decline more than 30 percent from a year ago despite overall market growth.

Due to lack of strong brand and differentiated offering these cellphone maker will suffer at high end due to domination by Apple and Samsung and at lower end by Chinese phone companies.

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said many of these large cellphone makers were struggling to stand out as they are squeezed by Apple and Samsung at the high-end of the market and by Chinese phone companies at the lower end.

"They are suffering because they do not have a differentiated offering and a strong enough brand," she said.

Samsung who dislodged Nokia from top position in global handset market after the latter’s 14-year domination would continue to lead the market. While Samsung is expected to sell 100 million phones in the third quarter, Nokia is expected to register a steep decline, according to report.

Nokia, now global No 2, was expected to report a sharp fall in phone sales from a year ago as its new Windows Phones are yet to compensate for falling sales of legacy products.