After a 14-year reign over the global mobile phone market, Nokia has finally been dethroned. For the first time ever, Samsung Electronics managed to outsell the Finnish phone maker and snatch the crown to become the world's No. 1 mobile maker, according to a Reuters poll of analysts.

According to the Reuters poll, analysts expect Samsung to have sold 88 million mobile units in January through March, outselling the 83 million mobile phones Nokia sold in the same quarter.

Nokia announced its sales total on Wednesday, April 11, mentioning losses from the phone business in the first and second quarters. Samsung is slated to release its numbers for the quarter on April 27.

Though Nokia has been struggling for years now to keep up in the highly-competitive smartphone race, its dominance in the lower-end of the market allowed the Finnish company to keep its No. 1 spot as the world's largest mobile maker by volume. In a similar poll back in January, Nokia was still expected to stay leave Samsung far behind.

Bitter Blow to Nokia

"After 14 years as the largest global mobile phone maker, getting knocked off the top spot will come as a bitter blow to Nokia," CCS Insight head of research Ben Wood told the Sydney Morning Herald. "In contrast it will be greeted with euphoria by Samsung - they'll be dancing from the boardroom to the factory floor," added Wood.

Nokia overtook Motorola in 1998 to become the world's largest mobile maker, and has not given up the crown since. Well, until now, that is. At a time when Samsung was just entering the industry, Nokia controlled roughly 40 percent of the market for years. It all started to change in 2007, when Apple's now-iconic iPhone was unveiled, ramping the smartphone boom.

While all analysts agree that losing the top spot would indeed be a powerful blow to Nokia, some believe it will have little impact on the company's attempt to turn it around. "I think it will hurt them from a PR perspective, but in reality it does not change anything," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. "At the end of the day the problems are the same if they remain the No. 1 or become the No. 2."

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)