According to a research firm, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has moved ahead of Finnish handset maker Nokia, with its flagship Galaxy S II product performing well.

Samsung announced last week that Samsung GALAXY S II (Model: GT-I9100) has passed the 5 million global sales milestone, a mark has been reached in just 85 days, a rate which is 40 days faster than the original GALAXY S took to reach the same sales mark.
Nokia on the other hand has its woes. The number vendor of handheld phones in the past decade is retiring the Symbian to avert slumping sales. Nokia has inked a partnership with Microsoft to use the Windows 7 platform for future Nokia phones. However, the first batch of Windows phones is still due in the last quarter of this year.

But Samsung's overall performance was underwhelming, considering the opportunities offered by the upheaval at Nokia, according to research firm Canalys.

Android Now Most Widely Used Platform

Research firm Canalys released its final worldwide country-level Q2 2011 smart phone market estimates, showing substantial market growth in all regions. Globally, the market grew 73% year-on-year, with in excess of 107.7 million units shipping in the second quarter of 2011. Of the 56 countries Canalys tracks around the world, Android led in 35 of them and achieved a global market share of 48%. Asia Pacific (APAC) remained the largest regional market, with 39.8 million units shipping there, compared with 35.0 million in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and 32.9 million in the Americas.

Android, the number one platform by shipments since Q4 2010, was also the strongest growth driver this quarter, with Android-based smart phone shipments up 379% over a year ago to 51.9 million units. Growth was bolstered by strong Android product performances from a number of vendors, including Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei. The final country-level data delivered to clients shows there were particularly strong performances from Android devices in APAC countries, such as South Korea, where Android holds an 85% platform share, and Taiwan, where it has 71%.

iPhone Single-Handedly Raises iOS

While the Android is used by a number of smartphone makers, the iOS operating system is solely used by Apple for its iPhone and tablets. Due to huge sales of the iPhone, Apple has carried the iOS as the second top platform.

With shipments of 20.3 million iPhones and a market share of 19%, iOS overtook Nokia's Symbian platform during the quarter to take second place worldwide. In doing so, Apple also became the world's leading individual smart phone vendor, stripping Nokia of its long-held leadership position.

"The iPhone has been a phenomenal success story for Apple and a watershed product for the market,' said Canalys VP and Principal Analyst Chris Jones. "It's an impressive success story, given that Apple has only been in the smart phone market for four years. With the next-generation iPhone anticipated in Q3, it's likely that Apple's position will grow even stronger in the second half of the year."
Apple introduced the iPhone 4 in June 2010, featuring an all-new design, FaceTime video calling, a high resolution Retina display, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and front facing camera, high definition video recording, Apple's A4 processor and a 3-axis gyroscope. iPhone 4 comes with the iOS 4 operating system.Apple delivered 69.3 million units of the iPhone for the 12 months ended June 25, 2011, a 108% increase from the same period the year before.

Apple is releasing this October the long delayed and widely anticipated iPhone 5, which is thinner and lighter than the previous iPhone model. The iPhone 5 is expected to be similar to the current iPhone 4, but slimmer with an improved eight-megapixel camera. The iPhone 5 is expected to have an A5 processor, a more powerful chip that was added to the iPad 2, which was released in April.
Although the iPhone 5 is still in the works, Apple posted record revenue of $28.57 billion and record net profit of $7.31 billion for the third quarter ended June 25, 2011, due to staggering sales of the iPhone and the iPad tablet.

Samsung Underwhelms?

Samsung also moved ahead of Nokia, with its flagship Galaxy S II product performing well, but its overall performance was underwhelming, considering the opportunities offered by the upheaval at Nokia, according to Canalys.

"Samsung has failed to fully capitalize on Nokia's weakened state around the world, as the Finnish company rides out a challenging transitional period," said Canalys' Jones. "It's the best placed vendor to grow at Nokia's expense, taking advantage of its global scale and channel reach, but it hasn't yet done enough to capitalize on this, particularly in emerging markets."

Samsung was the largest Android device vendor and the number two vendor overall in the market with shipments of its own-branded devices at 17.0 million units. Its year-on-year growth of 421% was helped by significant growth of 355% in its bada smart phone shipments. Samsung also acts as an ODM for the Google Nexus S and T-Mobile Sidekick 4G, collectively estimated to have shipped 0.7 million units.

The GALAXY S II is Samsung's flagship smartphone device; a thin, 8.49mm and lightweight dual-core smartphone that runs on the Android platform -- which is now the world's top mobile operating system.

Samsung aims to sell 60 million smartphone units before 2011 ends.

Samsung said Friday that second quarter operating profit declined year-on-year due to revenue declines from its semiconductor, micro-components, flat panels, and TV businesses. Samsung got a boost from its mobile phones and smartphones business.

In the third quarter, Samsung will continue to drive sales of the GALAXY SII and strengthen its product lineup with new mobiles featuring Long-Term Evolution technology. .

Nokia Resilient in Emerging Markets

Nokia's leadership position has proved most resilient in key emerging markets, and it still leads in the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. "The problem for Nokia is that demand for its Symbian-based smart phones has dissipated very rapidly, particularly in operator-led markets, such as Western Europe, where it's been strong in the past," said Canalys Principal Analyst Pete Cunningham. "It badly needs the first of its Windows Phone devices to launch as soon as possible to arrest a decline and, hopefully, silence its critics."

"While it is committed to launching a device before the end of the year, we do not expect to see it until mid-to-late Q4, and it will be much longer before a portfolio of Nokia Windows Phone smart phones drives volumes. Nokia is set to have several more difficult quarters before a possible reversal of fortunes," added Canalys' Cunningham.

Microsoft is also eager to see Nokia's first Windows Phone products, along with those from its other OEM partners, ship with its Mango update. "A fresh crop of products is certainly needed," said Jones. Fewer than 1.5 million Microsoft-based smart phones shipped during the quarter, equating to a mere 1% share of the global market, down 52% against shipments a year ago.

Windows Phone OEM partner HTC saw Android driving the vast majority of its portfolio, but Canalys expects it to continue to be a leading provider of Windows Phone products. HTC achieved particular success in North America this quarter, climbing to a 21% share and consolidating its second place position, while Apple's North American share dropped from 31% last quarter to 25% this quarter.

Nokia's first Windows phone, code-named Sea Ray, was showcased by CEO Stephen Elop to staff last month.

BlackBerry Losing Grip of North America

RIM had a challenging quarter in North America, with its market share slipping to 12%, down from 33% a year ago, leading to negative press coverage in the United States. But RIM's global shipments grew 11% year on year, keeping it the number one vendor in Latin America with a 28% share.

"It's easy to be negative about BlackBerry in the US, but it's important to remember that in other markets, particularly emerging markets, it continues to see significant interest and uptake of its devices, for example in Indonesia and South Africa where it is the leading smart phone vendor," said Canalys' Jones. "Nonetheless, it must continue to innovative and recapture lost momentum. It's critical that the next-generation BlackBerry OS 7-based products launch ahead of the upcoming holiday season to compete in the market."

Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry smartphones, said late July it will terminate 2,000 jobs, or almost 11% of its workforce, amid losing market share to Apple Inc.'s iPhone and smartphones running on Google's Android operating system.
A decade ago, RIM revolutionized the smartphone market with a mobile device that could send e-mail and text messages. Its devices with the QWERTY keyboard continued to sell with the popularity of Twitter. However, in the past two years, the BlackBerry has had difficulty finding its relevance in the market place.