Nomura said that after nearly 14 years at the top, Nokia "looks set to relinquish its smartphone crown to Samsung and Apple".
According to Nomura, Nokia's 19 million unit sales will be overtaken both by Samsung on 25 million and Apple on 20 million.
"We forecast that Nokia will continue to weaken relative to these two names and could even be overtaken by HTC by late 2012," Nomura analysts said.
The financial services firm added: "We maintain our view that Asia will increasingly drive smartphone growth and that Asian vendors are best position to take advantage of the overall growth opportunity."
Meanwhile, KPMG's Media and Entertainment Barometer has found that the popularity of smartphones and tablet computers continues to soar in the UK.
People "cannot get enough of smartphones and tablets in the UK", the report concluded.
Posted by Simon Jones
