Projection: Apple to Ship 86 Million iPhones This Year

Analysts are projecting that Apple will have sold no less than 86.4 million iPhone units in 2011, whereas hard-to-beat Nokia will only record 74.4 million smartphones sold by year's end.

According to Luke Lin, an analyst for Digitimes Research, Apple’s smartphone shipments are expected to surpass the 86.4 million mark in 2011.

Lin says this is an 82% increase from last year’s 47.5 million units which wasn’t all that bad either.

The surge will help propel the Mac maker past the cell-phone company, Nokia.

In 2011, the Finnish phone maker will see a sales decline to 74.4 million units from over 100 million in 2010, said Lin.

Apple, of course, will have to deal with aboard of Android-powered handsets from Samsung, HTC, LG, Huawei and ZTE, so the Cupertino, California electronics maker is not out of the woods yet.

Still, with the iPhone 5 on the roadmap, how can Apple miss?

Even with the company’s iconic CEO stepping down, it’s very likely that fall 2011 will witness the introduction of yet another competition killer - the iPhone 5 - and why not even the rumored incremental upgrade to today’s iPhone 4 - the iPhone 4S.

Apple is bringing out the big guns, teaming up with more and more wireless operators to carry the elusive iPhone, and the fifth-generation model is expected by everyone to launch with a bigger bang than all its predecessors.

Powered by a dual-core A5 chip, more graphics, more RAM and storage, higher-resolution cameras and perhaps a bigger screen and redesigned physical commands - all handled by the most advanced iOS to date - there’s really no missing with the iPhone 5 even as its existence remains unconfirmed.

Couple that with an iPhone 4S announcement, and Apple may just drag the mat under Nokia’s feet.