And Now A Samsung Slap Down For Apple

Samsung and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) continued to dominate the smartphone market in the last quarter, but the Korean company sold twice as many devices as its rival, according to IDC. Samsung shipped 56.3 million smartphones in the quarter globally, giving it 31.3 percent of the market, while Apple accounted for a 15 percent share with its 26.9 million shipments.

In the year-earlier quarter, Samsung had shipped 28.1 million handsets for a 22.7 percent share, while Apple’s 17.1 million iPhones gave it a 13.8 percent split.

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Nokia (NYSE:NOK) dropped off the top-five list of smartphone vendors for the fist time ever. While IDC did not report how many smartphones the new Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) partner shipped, it said Nokia’s total of 82.9 million mobile handsets was down 22 percent from the year-ago quarter.

“Nokia’s share losses have meant gains for competitors,” IDC’s Kevin Restivo said in a statement. “The company’s transition away from Symbian-powered smartphones to ones shipped with Windows Phone has left ample opportunity for rivals to steal share away from Nokia over the past 18 months.”

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) kept its third spot with a 4.3 percent market share, but is down from 9.6 percent last year. ZTE was next with 4.2 percent, while HTC came in at fifth with 4 percent. Overall, 179.7 million smartphones were shipped last quarter globally, a 45 percent increase from the prior year. Mobile handsets in total came in at 444.5 million, up just 2.4 percent from the 434.1 million in the same period in 2011.

Restivo said the smartphone market was “still relatively nascent, which means there’s room for multiple vendors and operating systems to flourish, including Nokia.”

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