Samsung - FT.com Galactic. That is one word for the quarterly results from the world's biggest technology group by sales. On Friday, Samsung reported that net income grew 81 per cent in the first quarter, to Won5tn ($4.4bn). A particularly bright spot was its 94m mobile phone shipments in the period, exceeding Nokia's for the first time and making Samsung the biggest star in the mobile phone firmament. Nokia is dimming, of course, but Samsung's 45m smartphone shipments also blazed past Apple's 35m iPhone sales, reckons Strategy Analytics. Apple still makes a third more revenues from iPhones than Samsung made from all its mobile phone sales during the quarter. But Samsung's reach goes further than Apple's. The Korean company has entry-level smartphones as well as high-end ones. This is exciting because smartphones priced less than $150 are set to grow three times faster than more expensive models in the next five years, according to IHS, the consultancy. The potential problem with lower-end smartphones is margins. But Samsung is a stickler for costs and makes almost all its own components. So, unlike Apple, which buys phone chips from Samsung, among others, the Korean technology group has tight control. Samsung has also moved some factories to Vietnam in an attempt to defend against structural inflation. And it has serious scale. That is why Samsung's memory chip segment, for example, made operating profits last year, while all its competitors made losses. It is not that Samsung does not have a strong brand in higher-end smartphones. It has spent $2bn on marketing in the past three months alone, as much as Apple. No wonder its Galaxy smartphones, along with Apple, control almost the whole top end of the US market. Samsung's investors must feel like they're stargazing.