Apple Leads Smartphone Sales in Q4 2011; Samsung Grabs Overall Lead for the Year

Apple, however, tweaked the iPhone 4 and days before the demise of co-founder Steve Jobs, unveiled the iPhone 4S in late October, with the virtual assistant Siri, deployed on each units, as the centre piece of the new gadget.

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Many tech experts called the iPhone upgrade as anaemic but consumers worldwide seemed not to care as iPhone 4S was snapped up by the millions, in fact selling up to 155 million until the final days of December whittled away.

According to Strategic Analytics director Alex Spektor, from the already astounding 37 million of iPhone 4 units that were sold in the last quarter of 2010, Apple saw its sale surging by 128 percent in the last three months of 2011.

On the other hand, Samsung's combined sales of all Galaxy smartphones reached 36.5 million, not even a third of Apple's sales figures, while Nokia only sold 19.6 million handsets to secure the third spot.

Clearly by the year end, more people around the world were using Apple smartphones while its competitors were left to fight it out with the remaining market shares.

"Apple overtook Samsung to become the world's largest smartphone vendor by volume with 24 percent market share," Spektor said.

The American firm's further success was credited to Apple's strategy of penetrating more market in 2011.

"Distribution of the iPhone family expanded across numerous countries, dozens of operators and multiple price points," the Strategic Analytics report noted.

Tim Cook reported to Apple shareholders last week that iPhone 4S outsold other phone brands and models in big ways during the lucrative season that spanned the months of October though December.

Yet for the year-to-year smartphone sale, Samsung bested its closest foe by capturing 20 percent of the market share for 2011 and selling 94.7 million of Galaxy handsets, most prominent of which were the Galaxy SII, the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Ace, all year round.