Stefan Mileschin

While Apple had to look sheepish earlier this week when it announced its results, its main rival Samsung had much to be happy about.

The company put Apple's figures to shame and recorded an operating profit of $5.9 billion for the June quarter, thanks mostly to its Galaxy S handset sales.

To make matters worse, while Apple is reporting a slowing down of future sales, Samsung is expecting to make yet more cash.

Analysts have been trying to claim the reason that Samsung is doing so well is because Apple fanboys are saving their pennies to buy the iPhone 5.

However, they have ignored the fact that sales for the iPhone dried up three months earlier than normal which might be due to the Samsung Galaxy range actually being better than the iPhone 4S.

Samsung's total profit was $7 billion with its mobile business bringing in around 60 percent of the company's earnings.

Profits of the handset division more than doubled from a year earlier and the flat-screen business swung to a profit as LCD prices stabilised.

While shares in Apple went down this week, shares in Samsung increased by five percent.

The figures would have been even better had Samsung not got a memory chip business which sucked up a bit of its profits.

JK Shin, head of Samsung's telecoms business, told Reuters that sales of the Galaxy S III where much better than he expected.

He forecast at least 10 million units in the first two months after its launch in late May. It is now preparing a sequel to the Galaxy Note later this year to counter Apple's new product releases.

Samsung is now the world's top global handset maker and has increased its smartphone shipments to 50.5 million in the June quarter. This is nearly double the 26 million iPhones sold.

At this rate the only way that Apple is going to stop Samsung is if it comes up with some new technology, or manages to convince enough courts that Samsung is using its technology.

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