Nokia overtaken by Samsung in European mobile phone sales

Samsung will become the world's largest smartphone maker in this quarter, overtaking the struggling Nokia. Apple is set to overtake Nokia in the following quarter, analysts at Nomura said today. Nokia has led the global market since 1996.

The forecast follows the news earlier this year that Nokia has been overtaken by Samsung in European mobile phone sales.

Although Samsung sold 12.6million smartphones in the first quarter of 2011, compared to Nokia’s 24million, the Finnish giant’s sales have been falling while Samsung’s have been rising steadily. In the same period, Apple sold nearly 19million iPhones.

"Nokia looks set to relinquish its smartphone crown to Samsung and Apple," Nomura analysts said in a new research note. They added that in 2012, HTC would also match Nokia’s sales volumes.

Nokia is set to launch a new range of smartphones using the Windows Phone operating software later in the year, but it has said that it will not be shipping these in serious volumes until 2012.

MetroPCS releases visual voice mail

Excuse us for not getting to this yesterday--E3 and Apple's WWDC keynote kept us a tad busy--but MetroPCS sneaked out a little announcement of its own yesterday by unveiling a visual voice mail service.

Like the services available on other carriers, MetroPCS' visual voice mail will enable customers to listen to individual voice messages without having to scan through their entire lists. Voice mails will show up on the phone's display along with the contact's picture and they can reply to the message by calling back or by sending a text message or an e-mail.

The service will be available on the Samsung Galaxy Indulge, LG Optimus M, and Huawei Ascend. Support for the RIM BlackBerry 8530 and other BREW-based devices will come at a later date. It will cost an additional $5 per month and you'll need at least a $45-per-month plan for non-4G