Nokia Tops HTC as Number-One Windows Phone Vendor

Nokia in the fourth quarter of 2011 became the world's number-one Microsoft smartphone vendor for the first time ever, according to a new data from Strategy Analytics.

The Finland-based handset maker shipped 900,000 Windows Phones during the quarter, the research firm said. That was enough to thrust Nokia past HTC and others to become the top Microsoft smartphone vendor, with 33 percent market share.

Microsoft smartphone shipments still "remain tiny" overall, but are showing some signs of growth, Alex Spektor, associate director at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement. Overall shipments of Microsoft Windows Phone 7-based smartphones were up 36 percent during the last three months of 2011, reaching 2.7 million units sold. In comparison, Apple sold a record 37 million iPhones during the fourth quarter.

Driving Nokia's growth was its expanded portfolio of Windows Phone 7 models, such as the Lumia 800, as well as highly visible marketing campaigns across Europe and Asia, said Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics.

In January, Nokia said it "sold well over 1 million Lumia devices to date," though it did not break out sales numbers for different versions of the phone.

Nokia last year partnered with Microsoft, agreeing to agreed to make Windows Phone 7 its primary OS platform. The move was intended to position Windows Phone to better compete with Google's Android and Apple's iOS mobile operating systems.

"Nokia is by no means out of the woods yet, and it is still on a long road to recovery, but capturing top spot in the Microsoft smartphone ecosystem is an encouraging baby-step forward for the company," Mawston said.

The company's small win came at a cost for HTC, which was previously the top Windows Phone 7 vendor, but now holds the number-two spot.

"Nokia's Microsoft smartphone growth during the quarter was achieved partly by capturing market share from HTC," Tom Kang, director at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement. "This is a challenging development for HTC because it is also losing ground to Samsung in the Android segment."

Nokia's first high-end Windows Phone device in the states will be the Nokia 900 (slideshow above), which was unveiled at CES and will reportedly hit stores in March. It features a 4.3-inch, AMOLED Clear Black display, the largest screen on a Lumia device so far, a 1.4-GHz processor, and a 1830 mAh battery.

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Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400688,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05039TX1K0000762

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