Samsung's continued domination of the smartphone niche is facing a major scare from other quarters in the industry. For a long time, the technology company has dominated the smartphone niche, but that edge seems to be losing its leverage over the rest of the players in the market. Indeed, the latest statistics show that Samsung (SSNLF) has lost traction against rivals such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), whose iPhone devices are selling steadily and HTC (HTCXF), whose owners are looking to acquire a respectable market segment. In the second quarter of this year, Samsung reported that its net profit fell by 8% from the values recorded last year. In the three months that ended late June, Samsung rerecorded 5.75 billion dollars in profits. This is a significant drop from the previous year's numbers ($6.25 billion) and a marked deviation from what the market had forecast. Samsung's mobile division was one of the hardest hit areas, recording a whopping 37.6% drop from figures re