Apple is the largest manufacturer of smart phones

Apple took back the crown from the sales of Samsung Electronics Co in sales of smartphones in the fourth quarter, a market research firm said Friday. With the introduction of 4S model iPhone, Apple increased its smartphone sales increase to 37 million in the quarter. Samsung does not give figures of how many smartphones you sell, but Strategy Analytics Inc. said the earnings report on Friday said Samsung sales of 36.5 million units after the company said its smartphone sales soared 30% quarter to quarter.
Those sales would give the South Korean company a market share of 23.5%, right on the heels of a 23.9% of its U.S. rival.

Samsung ranked first in the third quarter and took first place in all of 2011, Strategy Analytics said. It sold an estimated 97.4 million smartphones for the year, more than 93 million iPhones.

Samsung is waging a battle with Apple over the domain smart. Both companies are also engaged in a bitter legal battle over patents for the design and technology that goes into their smartphones and Tablet PC.

Nokia Corp won third place with 19.6 million smartphones sold in the fourth quarter, amounting to a market share of 12.6%, down from 28.1% took place a year earlier.

For the year, Nokia sold 77.3 million units.

Shipments of smart phones worldwide in the fourth quarter rose 55% year on year to a record $ 155 million, while 2011 shipments increased 11% to 488.5 million.