Though Strategy Analytics pegs worldwide shipments throughout the quarter at 400 million 10 million up on ABI's prediction both firms said mobile shipments were up 16 percent year on year in Q4 2010.
Knocking Nokia
"It was a mixed quarter for the world's major handset vendors," said director Neil Mawston.
"Some brands outperformed, such as Apple, while others underperformed, such as LG and Nokia. LG continued to lose ground due to a weak smartphone portfolio, while Nokia suffered ongoing component shortages and sluggish sales in the important US market."
Indeed, as is customary with such evaluations, Strategy Analytics' numbers show Nokia's share of the market slowly decreasing quarter by quarter, falling to 31 percent in Q4 2010.
Samsung is clear in second spot, its share for the year averaging out at 20.6 percent.
Its fellow Android advocates didn't average quite so well, however; LG's share fell to 7.7 percent in Q4 2010, while Motorola's isn't big enough to warrant a solo spot in the firm's charts at all.
Motoring Motorola?
However, Strategy Analytics does note that, for the first time in four years, Motorola's handset division managed to turn a profit.
"Motorola shipped 11.3 million handsets worldwide during Q4 2010, of which 43 percent was smartphones," the report states.
"The growing ratio of smartphone shipments, mostly Android, enabled Motorola to eke out its first profit in the handset division since Q4 2006."
Motorola has since split its handset business from the rest of its operations.
[source: Strategy Analytics]
