Apple Tops Nokia to Become World's Top Smartphone Vendor

As noted by the Financial Times, Apple has officially passed Nokia to become the world's top smartphone vendor. Apple's rapid growth paired with a sharp drop in shipments for Nokia allowed Apple to turn a 5.5 million unit deficit during the first quarter into a 3.6 million unit lead in the second quarter.

Shipments of Nokia smartphones declined by 34 per cent to 16.7m units, compared with the 20.3m iPhones shipped by Apple in its second quarter.

Apple was already the biggest smartphone maker by revenue and profits, but the April-June period marked the first time it had surpassed Nokia in volume.

Apple has been climbing the rankings of top smartphone vendors as longtime leaders Nokia and Research in Motion have faded. Apple passed Research in Motion in global shipments back in the third quarter of last year, and rapidly closed the gap on Nokia to claim the lead this past quarter.

Apple has of course faced stiff competition from Android over the last couple of years, but with dozens of manufacturers pushing out Android devices, no single vendor has been able to approach Apple's shipment volumes. Samsung and HTC lead the Android pack and have experienced very strong growth, but each company's smartphone shipments remains about half that of Apple's.