Samsung passes Apple, Nokia in global smartphone shipments
Apple may be seeing some success in the courts when it comes to its war on Samsung, but Samsung has the upper hand when it comes to sheer shipment numbers. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones globally during the third quarter of 2011, up from a mere 7.5 million during the same quarter in 2010. That's an increase of 370 percent year-over-year, allowing Samsung to leapfrog both Apple and Nokia.
Apple, by comparison, shipped 17.1 million handsets during Q3 2011, up from 14.1 million in the year-ago quarter. Nokia's smartphone shipments dropped from 26.5 million in Q3 2010 to just 16.8 million in Q3 2011, according to Strategy Analytics' numbers. This puts Samsung at 23.8 percent of the global smartphone market, with Apple coming in second at 14.6 percent and Nokia at 14.4 percent. "Others" made up 47.3 percent of the market.