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Samsung claims to have overtaken Nokia to become the world’s largest handset vendor by revenue in Q4 – and forecasts it will overtake the Finnish vendor in shipments too later this year.

According to Reuters, the bullish claims were made by Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung at a press conference at CES 2012 in Las Vegas this week.

If Samsung were to begin selling more phones than Nokia it would end the Finnish vendor’s 14-year reign as the world’s largest handset-maker.

Reuters notes that Samsung's bullish forecast is in line with some analysts, including Royal Bank of Scotland, which are betting that Samsung would build on its momentum to overtake Nokia in 2012, but on average analysts expect Nokia to keep its lead. According to the latest analyst polls, Nokia was expected to sell 418 million phones in 2011, versus Samsung's 320 million. The gap is forecast to narrow this year to 388 million versus 359 million.

"Samsung is getting closer to Nokia very quickly. Their smartphones strategy has proven right and on feature phones they are growing fast in emerging markets too," said IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo.

The South Korean firm said last month that it expected 2011 handset sales to top 300 million for the first time, mainly led by a near four-fold jump in smartphone sales. Samsung become the world’s largest smartphone vendor in Q3, overtaking Apple.

Last week, Samsung reported record preliminary operating profit of KWR5.2 trillion (US$4.5 billion) for Q4 2011 on sales of KWR47 trillion.