Nokia’s loss is proving to be Samsung’s gain. My yesterday’s post about how Nokia was losing out in the emerging markets to folks like Samsung and LG elicited a lot of reaction. Samsung put out a press release and confirmed it. The company expects handset sales to be better than expected in the first quarter, and the total will be around 19.5 million handsets in the quarter. If this is the case, that is 48% year-over-year growth. A report from Loop Capital put it all in context –

bq. If the 19.5M Samsung handset number holds true, we also tried to calculate some preliminary handset market share statistics. It could shake out like this for the top three. Nokia could drop to 36% share from 38% share in the prior Q. This sounds close, since CEO Jorma Ollila squawked at a posed 4% point loss on NOK’s conference call. Motorola reports April 20, but at our 17.5% YOY growth estimate, the company would retain second place with 16% share versus 15% in the prior Q. Then, Samsung could move up near 16% as well from 11% in the prior Q.