Samsung Overtook Apple as Top Smartphone Maker in Q1: Strategy Analytics

It said Samsung shipped 83.2 million smartphones worldwide and captured 24 percent market share in the quarter, down from 31 percent a year earlier but better than Apple's 18 percent.

"Samsung continued to face challenges in Asia and elsewhere, but its global performance has stabilised sufficiently well this quarter to overtake Apple and recapture first position as the world's largest smartphone vendor by volume," Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston said in a statement.

Samsung on Wednesday said the average selling price of its handsets will likely rise in the second quarter as the firm rolls out its new flagship Galaxy S6 smartphones.

Samsung head of investor relations Robert Yi said in a conference call that the average selling price of the firm's handsets during the January-March quarter was about $200. He said smartphones accounted for more than 80 percent of the 99 million handsets shipped during that period.

Samsung Electronics posted a near 40 percent fall in first quarter net profit Wednesday, missing analyst estimates despite a surge in memory chip demand that cushioned a slump in smartphone sales.

Facing increasing competition from arch rival Apple and smaller Chinese manufacturers, the world's top handset maker reported a net profit of KRW 4.6 trillion ($4.3 billion) for the January-March period, down 38.9 percent from a year earlier.

Written with agency inputs