Apple has emerge as the number one smartphone vender worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2011 , by a small margin , after miss ground to Samsung in the previous one-quarter , inquiry firms Strategy Analytics and IHS iSuppli pronounce .
But the Korean giant has emerged as the grocery store drawing card for the first time in 2011 , the research business firm said Thursday . Samsung shipped nearly 100 million smartphones during the year .
Samsung had a close to 20 percent share for the yr , in comparison to Apple ’s 19 percent portion , consort to Strategy Analytics .
Samsunghad overtakenApple in the third fourth , as customer wait for the iPhone 4S. Apple ’s introduction of the new telephone set in the fourth quarter let loose tremendous pen - up requirement for the iPhone as consumers awaited the arrival of the latest model , said IHS iSuppli .
Besides competing in the market place , Apple and Samsung are in fierce letters patent litigation , with Apple endeavor to stop Samsung twist in many mart .
globose smartphone shipments grew 54 percentage annually to reach a record 155 million units in the quaternary stern , tell Strategy Analytics .
Apple ’s smartphone shipments in the fourth fourth were 37 million , up 128 percent from the same quarter a year ago , it enounce . dispatch by Samsung in the quarter were 36.5 million , up 241 percent .
Nokia ’s global smartphone market share halved from 33 percent in 2010 to 16 percent in 2011 , chiefly on bill of a lusterless touchscreen smartphone portfolio and a modified bearing in the U.S. market , Strategy Analytics said . Nokia ’s partnership with Microsoft will be very much in focus during 2012 , and the industriousness will be watching nearly to see how fleetly the two companies can expand in the in high spirits - value 4 GB LTE ( farseeing term organic evolution ) market that is apace go forth across the U.S. , Japan and elsewhere , it added .
Other major Android licensees like Sony Ericsson and Motorola did not match Samsung ’s unattackable smartphone operation in the fourth tail or for the full year , indicating that the Android smartphone market is becoming too crowded “ as the various licensee compete for circumscribed consumer mindshare and ledge blank ” , IHS iSuppli say .
Sony Ericsson shipped 9 million phones in the fourth quarter , a 20 percent drop-off year - on - year , citing fierce contender and price erosion as grounds for the poor termination . Its result for the quarter , which included a net passing and a drib in revenue , foreground the conflict of many vendors who rely on Google ’s Android to power its smartphones .
globose French telephone shipments meanwhile were 445 million social unit in the fourth fourth part of 2011 , up 11 percent from the same quarter in the previous year . Nokia is still the leader with a 25.5 pct plowshare for the quarter and nigh to 27 percent share for the full year , but its plowshare has fallen from over 30 pct in the previous year . Strategy Analytics said . Samsung was the telephone number two , followed by Apple .
update at 10:35 a.m. to correct the number of smartphones Samsung shipped during 2011 .
