Samsung Leads Smartphone Sales In Q4, Growth Driven By Galaxy S3

Samsung dominated smartphone sales last quarter, accounting for over 30% of all smartphone shipments worldwide, according to Juniper Research.  Samsung shipped 63 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, with its Galaxy S3 surpassing 40 million in November.  Apple, which reports sales and not shipments, came in second with 47.8 million sold.

Research in Motion and Nokia trailed behind, shipping 6.7 and 6.6 million respectively.  Nokia shipped 4.4 million of its Lumia device, while its Symbian handset continued to dwindle.  Sales of its Symbian handset dropped to 2.2 million shipments.  Nokia recently said that it is shifting away from its Symbian operating system and plans to exclusively focus on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, which powers the Lumia.

Overall, the research group said smartphone shipments had a strong year, reaching 671 million.  That was up 42 percent year over year, including 200 million in the fourth quarter alone.

Research in Motion is hoping to regain more marketshare in 2013 with Blackberry 10 and a new line of smartphones expected to launch in a few days.