Apple Tops the Smartphone Foodchain, Samsung on the Prowl

Nokia and Samsung has been demoted with Apple becoming the top smartphone vendor in the fierce global mobile device war. According to reports, Apple has sold over 20 million iPhones along with over 9 million iPads in the second quarter.

Nokia has seen its position slip due to the uprising of Apple and Android phones running on advanced mobile operating systems.

Based on stats from IDC, Nokia saw its market share drop 20.3% each year and seeing last year's 111.1 million units decline to 88.5 million in 2011. Nokia has hovered in the low and mid range phones with few smartphone innovations. The company looks to battle back if its partnership with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 continues to produce solid numbers.

"The shrinking feature phone market is having the greatest impact on some of the world's largest suppliers of mobile phones," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.

Apple and Google have catered to a growing market for smartphones not just in the U.S. but internationally through Europe and Japan. The smartphone touchscreen trend is picking up as markets grew by double digits annually according to IDC. Other statistics show that 110 million smartphone units were sold in the second quarter fueled by the release of Android devices, especially coming from Samsung.

Samsung continues to hold strong and appears to be Apple's main threat if the Korean tech company maintains its pace of smartphone sales. After posting a 520% growth in smartphone shipments in the second quarter, Samsung propelled itself up the charts out beating Nokia and coming in at a close second place to Apple.

"Samsung's 500 percent year-over-year growth shows that, going forward, the top smartphone OEM position is Samsung's to lose," said Michael Morgan a Senior Research Analyst at ABI.

A scheduled release for its Galaxy S2 smartphone could be Samsung's ticket to grabbing the top spot in the smartphone food chain.

The combination of Google's Android and the Samsung flagship smartphones has been a force to be reckoned with. Google's Android claimed the biggest chunk out of the U.S. smartphone market with 39% in June. Compared with Apple, their iOS platform grabbed 28% according to Nielsen.

Reports show that Samsung shipped 19.2 million units in the second quarter and owns 17.5% of the market. Their impressive growth is due to rapid fire sales especially with their Galaxy S2 launch ramping up in China and a U.S. release scheduled sometime in August through AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Apple's highly anticipated iPhone 5 expects to keep the top spot if it can come out with a strong release date rumored to be in September. The demand will be high as recent surveys show that a third of U.S. consumers are ready to pounce on the device once it hits stores.

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