The latest figures released by IDC suggest the mobile market continues to expand, with shipments for the quarter up 19.8 percent.
But it's the movement between the various major players that offers the most interest.
Top dogs
Indeed, Nokia's continued slide should, in theory, place its leadership in doubt. However, IDC figures suggests its two nearest competitors - Samsung and LG - are also losing share.
Across Q1 2011, Nokia and Samsung saw their respective shares of the market fall year-on-year, despite both parties shipping more units to retail.
Nokia now holds a 29.2 percent share, down 5.5 percent from Q1 2010, having shipped 108.5 million units across the quarter.
Second placed Samsung also saw its share fall by 1.9 percent as shipments rose to 70 million in Q1 2011.
Eyes on Apple
It's Apple, however, that is making the biggest waves.
The firm has seen it's share almost double from 2.8 percent in Q1 2010 to 5 percent in the most recent quarter.
Shipments are also up, hitting 18.7 million units across Q1 2011, up from 8.7 million units in the same period 2010.
"The company posted the highest growth rate of the worldwide leaders," said IDC of Apple's success.
"Apple's results were buoyed by strong sales on Verizon Wireless and additional carrier deals; the company is now on 186 carriers operating in 90 countries. The iPhone once again sold particularly well in developed economic regions of the world, such as North America and Western Europe."
Growing global
Whether Apple is able to hold on to its position as the industry's golden boy in the quarters to come will be interesting to see, if only because of IDC's insistence that markets such as Asia (excluding Japan), the Middle-East and Africa are serving up the most growth.
Feature phones tend to be the dominant force in many of these regions - which itself is one of the major factors behind Nokia's continued run at the top - though IDC claims smartphones will, eventually, make their presence known.
"Feature phones have represented the majority of mobile phone shipments, but still are under tremendous pressure from smartphones," said senior IDC analyst Ramon Llamas.
"Even popular quick-messaging devices - phones with a QWERTY keyboard - once a bright spot within the feature phone market, appear to be losing steam as smartphones gain popularity.
"Still, IDC does not expect feature phones to disappear quickly as there is still strong demand across the globe."
[source: BusinessWire]
