The release of the Verizon iPhone and the smartphone's expansion in China helped boost Apple's first quarter shipments, pushing it ever closer to Nokia. Samsung and HTC also saw major smartphone gains, with HTC nearly surpassing the 10 million unit mark for the first time.
According to data from IDC, Apple reached record worldwide shipment volumes for a single quarter—18.7 million units shipped, compared to 8.7 million during the same time period last year. With those gains, Apple now trails Nokia by only six million units.
Nokia remained the top smartphone vendor with 24.3 percent of the market, and IDC found that demand for Symbian-based smartphone "remained strong" in Europe and Asia. Nokia, however, is now transitioning from Symbian to Windows Phone 7, which IDC said could hurt Nokia's market share as competitors ramp up their smartphone production.
Two of those big competitors are Samsung and HTC, which landed in the four and five spots with 10.8 percent and 8.9 percent of the market, respectively. Samsung posted the largest year-over-year gains, from 2.4 million shipments last year to 10.8 million this year. IDC pointed to Samsung's growing portfolio of Android-based devices like the Galaxy S line, as well as bada-powered Wave and Windows Phone 7 smartphones that continued to gain traction.
HTC, meanwhile, almost hit the 10 million mark for the first time, landing at 8.9 million units shipped. That's up from 2.7 million during the same time period last year. HTC has had a busy quarter, announcing its "Facebook phones," the Salsa and ChaCha, as well as the Inspire 4G, EVO Shift 4G, and LTE-enabled Thunderbolt.
"These, along with its investments and developments on hardware, displays, and its HTC Sense layer have helped HTC differentiate itself further in an increasingly crowded market," IDC found.
Research in Motion, meanwhile, landed in the number three spot with 14 percent of the market, which is down from 19.1 percent last year. It did, however, manage to grow its presence outside of North America. At this week's BlackBerry World, RIM unveiled the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930, as well as BlackBerry OS 7, but IDC found that many of RIM's shipments were for older, cheaper devices.
Overall, the smartphone market grew by 79.7 percent in the last year thanks to shiny new smartphones, as well as lower prices on older models.
"The rise of Android as a prominent mobile operating system has allowed several suppliers to gain share quickly," Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, said in a statement. "Also, the relatively nascent state of smartphone adoption globally means there is ample room for several suppliers to comfortably co-exist, at least for the short term."