According to Gartner, worldwide smartphone sales to end users soared to 149 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 - this represents a 47.3 per cent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010! Total smartphone sales in 2011 were also really good and they reached 472 million units, up 58 percent from 2010.

What's also interesting is that smartphone volumes during the quarter rose especially due to record sales of Apple iPhones and this is why the company became the third-largest mobile phone vendor in the world, overtaking LG. Apple also became the world's top smartphone vendor, with a market share of 23.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, and the top smartphone vendor for 2011 as a whole, with a 19 percent market share. "Western Europe and North America led most of the smartphone growth for Apple during the fourth quarter of 2011," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. "In Western Europe the spike in iPhone sales in the fourth quarter saved the overall smartphone market after two consecutive quarters of slow sales."

The quarter saw Samsung and Apple strenghten their positions while LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and RIM recorded disappointing results as they struggled to improve volumes and profits.

Apple had an exceptional fourth quarter, selling 35.5 million smartphones to end users, a 121.4 percent increase year on year. Gartner believes and we must agree that Apple's strong performance will continue into the first quarter of 2012 as availability of the iPhone 4S widens. But on the other hand since Apple will not benefit from delayed purchases as it did in the fourth quarter of 2011, Gartner analysts expect its sales to decline quarter-on-quarter.

Gartner also wrote:

"In the smartphone OS market (see Table 3), competition between Google and Apple intensified. Android's share declined slightly sequentially. This was due to strong iPhone sales, driven in particular by the iPhone 4S in mature markets and the weakness of key Android vendors as they struggled to create unique and differentiated devices. Samsung remained the main contributor to Android share gains in the second half of 2011. iOS's market share grew 8 percentage points year-on-year, but Gartner analysts expect Apple's share to drop in the next couple of quarters as the upgrade cycle to the iPhone 4S slows. Nokia's first Windows Phone smartphones, the Lumia 710 and 800, made their debut, but, as expected, sales were not enough to prevent a fall in Microsoft's smartphone market share."

Source: http://www.engadget.com