Samsung smartphone & tablet lineup.

Nokia’s smartphone presence in the U.S. is barely a blip on the marketshare radar. However, Nokia has been worldwide smartphone market leader since day one. Reuters sets this day one date as 1996. Reuters quotes a Nomura analysis predicting this worldwide dominance coning to an end this year.

Samsung, Apple to end Nokia’s smartphone reign

Nomura’s analysts predict that Samsung will overtake Nokia in smartphone sales this quarter. They also predict that Apple will overtake Nokia next quarter dropping Nokia to third in the worldwide smartphone market.

Nokia’s rapid fall from its smartphone leadership position has serious implications for Microsoft which is presumbed to be counting on Nokia’s marketshare to help boost its Windows Phone efforts. Nokia’s Windows Phone pushed is not expected until late this year at the earlier and will probably not see a major push until 2012. In the meantime, Android (which is powering Samsung’s rise) and iPhone are powering forward and producing updates on a regular basis. A complete Nokia smartphone market collapse could lead to a Microsoft Windows Phone market collapse despite predictions by serveral analysts that it will take the number two smartphone platform spot in 2015,