Apple passes Nokia on its way to the top of the smartphone market

Nokia is on a downward slide. The Finnish handset maker announced its quarterly earnings today and confirmed it shipped 16.7 million smartphones in the most recent quarter. This drop now puts Nokia in third place behind Apple and Samsung.

Apple has risen to the top of the smartphone market having shipped 20 million iPhones in the last three months. Samsung will announce its quarterly earnings next week and is expected to slide into second place behind Apple with an estimated shipment volume of 19.5 million smartphones.

Looking beyond shipments, Apple's smartphone revenue was also four times that of Nokia. Apple reported US$13.3 billion in iPhone revenue as compared to Nokia's lowly $3.4 billion. Nokia is hoping its partnership with Microsoft and platform shift to Windows Phone 7 will help boost these lagging numbers, but that may be a pie-in-the-sky dream.

With iOS 5 and possibly the iPhone 5 on the horizon, Apple is in a positon to further its lead in the smartphone market.

[Via The Next Web]