Nokia ousted from smartphone top five

Nokia has dropped out of the top five
global smartphone vendors, with its
place being taken by BlackBerry
manufacturer RIM.
Samsung extended its lead as the
world's top smartphone vendor in the
third quarter of 2012, followed by
Apple, according to IDC's quarterly
tracking survey .
Nokia, once the top smartphone
vendor in the world, fell out of the top
five for the first time since IDC began
tracking the market in 2004.
"Nokia's share losses have meant
gains for competitors," said Kevin
Restivo, an analyst at IDC. "The
company's transition away from
Symbian-powered smartphones to
ones shipped with Windows Phone
has left ample opportunity for rivals to
steal share away from Nokia over the
past 18 months.
"However, the smartphone market is
still relatively nascent, which means
there's room for multiple vendors and
operating systems to flourish,
including Nokia."
Nokia's place in the top five was taken
by Research In Motion, the Canadian
firm that makes BlackBerry
smartphones. Its shipments and
market share declined year-on-year
but its position in third on the list was
helped by the greater decline of Nokia
and by a slumping HTC, which was
ahead of RIM this time last year but
fell to fifth in the last quarter.
Making up the top five was Chinese
firm ZTE, which is fourth in the IDC list
with a 4.2 per cent share of the
market.
The figures show that Samsung
dominates the market, with a 31.3 per
cent share, while Apple is second with
15 per cent. However, IDC's data
includes only the first week of iPhone
5 sales.
In overall mobile phone shipments
Nokia remains in second place
globally, with 18.7 per cent of the
market, ahead of Apple's 6.1 per cent
but behind Samsung's 23.7 per cent
share.