A new report available on companiesandmarkets.com has determined that Nokia is the leading player in the global handset shipments market, with a Q3'2011 share of 27.33%. The Finnish company beat well know competitors Samsung and LG into second and third place respectively. Despite this seeming dominance of the market by Nokia, Samsung is starting to rival it, with a market share of 22.95% which is a 25% increase on the same time in 2010.

Apple has made positive inroads into the global handsets market, and despite their Q3'2011 total being down on their previous quarter results for the year, they are up on the same period from last year. Huawei, RIM's Blackberry and HTC are all just behind Apple in market share, each with just over 3% of this competitive market. This year has gradually seen the decrease in market share of the once dominant player Motorola Mobility, how standing at a lowly 9th place in the global handsets shipments market.

The shipment of handsets to the global marketplace reached 1366.80 million units in 2010, an all time high for the industry. 2011 is set to be another record breaking year for the market, with Q3'2011 alone accounting for 393.96 million units, and a total of 111.93 million units for the first three quarters.

Despite the overall rise in fortunes for the global handset shipments market, volumes fell in North America (-6.60%), Western Europe (-10.82%) and Eastern and Central Europe (-1.49%). These falls were more than compensated however by dramatic rises is the Asia-Pacific sector (24.91%), Latin and Central America (23.28%) and the Middle East and Africa (45.38%). Within the global market, this quarter has reflected the continuing changes with vendors in all regions with several making announcements of new products, new operating systems and new functionality in a drive to generate sales ahead of Q4 demand.

Full Report Details: http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/Market-Report/global-handset-shipments,-vendor-market-share,-strategies-and-key-trends-q3-2011-738455.asp