It's apparent slip has come at the hands of former king Apple, with the firm's Q4 shipment of 37 million iPhones pushing it ahead of what Strategy Analytics believes was the 36.5 million Samsung shipped to market.
The top two
"While Apple took the top spot in smartphones on a quarterly basis, Samsung became the market leader in annual terms for the first time with 20 percent global share during 2011," said executive director Neil Mawston.
"With global smartphone shipments nearing half a billion units in 2011, Samsung is now well positioned alongside Apple in a two-horse race at the forefront of one of the world's largest and most valuable consumer electronics markets."
![](https://media.pocketgamer.biz/2012/1/8181/strategyanalyticsq4-r471x.jpg)
Indeed, it was Apple that Samsung replaced to take top spot back in Q3, with the two firms likely to tussle it out for some time to come.
Samsung now holds 33.5 percent of the market to Apple's 33.9 percent.
Both firms helped drive record smartphone shipments of 155 million units across the quarter up 54 percent.
Knocking Nokia
But it wasn't good news for everybody.
"Nokia's global smartphone market share halved from 33 percent in 2010 to 16 percent in 2011," said director Tom Kang.
"A lackluster touchscreen smartphone portfolio and a limited presence in the huge United States market caused Nokia's shrinkage last year.
"Nokia's partnership with Microsoft will be very much in focus during 2012, and the industry will be watching closely to see how swiftly the two companies can expand in the high-value 4G LTE market that is rapidly emerging across the United States, Japan and elsewhere."
Nokia will no doubt be cheered by the news that Lumia shipments have already passed 1 million units since launch.
[source: Strategy Analytics]