Expectations for record quarterly earnings are rising for Samsung Electronics with a recent report indicating that the firm has beaten its rival Apple Inc. in global smartphone sales for the first quarter.

Global investment bank Canaccord Genuity’s technology analyst Michael Walkley said in a report released Tuesday that he sees Samsung selling 41 million smartphones from January-March, outperforming Apple’s 32.6 million and Nokia’s 12.5 million.

Raising his yearly estimate for smartphones to 723 million units from 695 million units, Apple and Samsung were projected to further consolidate their profits in the first quarter, according to Walkley.

The news comes as the Korean IT behemoth is getting ready to announce its guidance for the first quarter earnings on Friday.

Backed by the strong sales of its flagship LTE handset Galaxy Note, Samsung is projected to announce high figures in sales and operating profit.

The firm said earlier on Monday that it sold up to 1.65 million units of the Galaxy Note in Korea, selling an average of 18,000 units of the model per day.

Lee Sae-chul, an analyst at Meritz Securities, said that the company is likely to record 5.5 trillion won ($4.9 billion) in operating profit despite the fact that the first quarter is an off-season.

Samsung recorded 5.2 trillion won in operating profit in the final quarter of last year, however, the figure included one-shot profit which occurred from the sale of one of its unit.

“It showed strong Galaxy Note sales, with it recording 4 million units in global sales and the expanded lineup of its products also contributed to the rise in profit,” said Lee. “There is not much competition excluding Apple in the smartphone industry, so continuous growth is expected for the firm.”

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)