Total shipments of mobile handsets and smartphones reached 1.36 billion in 2010, according to the latest forecasts from ABI Research.
For the fourth quarter of 2010, 390 million handsets and smartphones were shipped, an increase of 15.6% year-over-year.
The research report revealed that Nokia’s market share slid marginally to 31.7%, because its revamped smartphone portfolio has yet to gain traction.
Samsung market share increased marginally to 20.7% with its Galaxy-S gaining ground in the smartphone segment.
However, Apple’s iPhone 4 captured a chunk of the smartphone market and its market share increased to 4.2%, followed by RIM at 3.6% due to a refreshed lineup of keyboard smartphones and a hybrid touch-screen/keyboard smartphone known as the ‘Torch’.
Further, the research firm said that HTC, Huawei, ZTE and TCL were also among the overall handset market share winners.
On the other side, LG, Sony-Ericsson, and Motorola lost 7.8%, 2.9% and 2.9% global handset market share, respectively.
However, Motorola has continued to show quarter-on-quarter growth.
The report revealed that a number of Chinese and Indian handset vendors will corner an increasing slice of the global handset market by introducing aggressively priced handsets and smartphones that cater to the needs of emerging market consumers and mobile operators looking for operator-branded handsets.
ABI Research mobile devices VP and practice director Kevin Burden said Huawei, ZTE and TCL/Alcatel Mobile are being joined by Indian vendors Micromax and Spice Mobile as regional and global handset movers and shakers.
Further, chipset companies ARM and Qualcomm have also benefited by the smartphone boom, while MediaTek is angling to capture the low-end smartphone segment.
