We know how many smartphones Apple (AAPL) sold last quarter: 35,064,000. It's right there in their press release and in their SEC Form 10-Q.
We can only guess how many Samsung sold because although they released their quarterly earnings Friday, the company -- continuing a policy it adopted last year -- no longer shares that kind of information.
For that we have to rely on market research firms, and they disagree.
According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung shipped (but not necessarily sold) 44.5 million smartphones in the March quarter, regaining the lead it lost to Apple in December.
According to iSuppli, Samsung shipped 32 million, a few million shy of Apple's total.
Both firms agree that Samsung has now overtaken Nokia (NOK) as the No. 1 manufacturer of mobile phones, smart and dumb, but they disagree by how much. Strategy Analytics estimates that Samsung shipped 93.5 million handsets in the quarter to Nokia's 82.7 million. iSuppli puts Samsung's total at 92 million.