That's a criticism that cannot be laid at the door of Gartner's latest summary, with the firm's numbers painting two clear pictures.
One that depicts Nokia losing more than 8 percent of its global market share, the other the continued rise of Android, which now sits as the second largest smartphone OS in the world.
Nokia nosedive
Smartphone sales, as a whole, continue to rise, up 96 percent year-on-year in Q3 2010 and accounting for 19.3 percent of the 417 million devices sold across the quarter equal to around 81 million units.
Nokia's market leading share of such sales, however, remains in decline. Gartner claims the Finnish firm holds 28.2 percent of the worldwide mobile market a fall of 8.5 percent from the same quarter last year, and one that represents Nokia's lowest global share since 1999.
Gartner states a shortage of components held Nokia shipments back in Q3 2010, the result of which was consumers moved from its out-of-stock low end devices to the high end smartphones manufactured by its rivals.
It's the ascent of these rivals that means Samsung also lost market share, despite selling 10 million more units across the quarter year-on-year according to Gartner's figures.
In turn, both Apple and RIM saw their shares climb, with strong demand for iPhone 4 crowning Apple as one of the top five mobile manufacturers in the world for the first time in its history.
Google on the gain
Gartner's analysis of smartphone formats tells a similar story. Symbian remains the top platform in the world, but its share has fallen to 36.6 percent down 8 percent year-on-year.
It's Android, however, that looks poised to take over at the top, with Google's share up 22 percent from Q3 2009 to 25.5 percent in the latest quarter, moving the OS into second spot ahead of both iOS on 16.7 percent and BlackBerry on 14.8 percent.
Android, iOS and BlackBerry all saw sales rise across the quarter in total, all three sold 45.9 million units in Q3 2010, compared to just under 17 million in Q3 2009 but Google's platform appears to be stealing share from its two rivals, with Samsung's Galaxy S a particularly strong performer.
"Smartphone OS providers have entered a period of accelerated platform evolution, stimulated by more regular product releases, new platform entrants and new device types," said Gartner's principle research analyst Roberta Cozza.
"Any platform that fails to innovate quickly either through a vibrant multi-player ecosystem or clear vision of a single controlling entity will lose developers, manufacturers, potential partners and ultimately users."
Gartner's full report can be downloaded for $1,295 from the firm's website.
