Nokia Top Handset Maker For Q1 2011

ABI Research has released a report that outlines how the top 10 wireless phone manufacturers performed in the first quarter of 2011. This is for any phone, not just smartphones. However, the data is interesting and we can still learn something about the companies that make phones that run on the big smartphone platforms.

FierceWireless has a number of charts and tables that show where the manufacturers rank. Nokia is still at the top with 32.7% of the market. Even though Symbian is falling out of favor, Nokia still showed growth versus the same quarter last year, selling 108.5 million devices against 107.8 million in Q1 2010. It will be interesting to see how its sales play out in 2011 now that it is known that Symbian has been abandoned and Windows Phone 7 devices will be replacing them.

Samsung and LG took the second and third slots with 21.3% and 8.1%, respectively. Both of these manufacturers use a variety of platforms, including Android and Windows Phone 7. Samsung also has its own Bada platform, which shipped on 3.5 million devices in the period being analyzed.

Apple came in at fourth place, taking 4.8% share. By definition, that means the iPhone and iOS make up 4.8% of the total phone market for the quarter. With more than 331 million devices sold, a 4.8% share is impressive when you consider that was for one phone, albeit two versions of it--the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS that AT&T is still selling as a bargain-basement entry smartphone.

RIM is fifth with 3.8%. While you cannot identify where any individual Blackberry phone is, it does show where the Blackberry platform is overall. The once mighty Motorola came in seventh place.

In tenth place is HTC. I was a bit surprised to see them so far back with just 2.4% of the market. You have to realize though that the ABI report only includes phones sold under the manufacturer's brand. Though many HTC phones have HTC on them, some don't, bearing instead just the logo of the carrier. HTC's main focus is on Android, though they do have some Windows Phone 7 devices as well.

As I said, the most interesting one to watch in the next four to six quarters will be Nokia. Will they be able to deftly move to Windows Phone and maintain their lead? Time will tell.