Q4 2011: Apple first with 500.000 units more than Samsung second, in world's smartphones market share.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Apple Inc overtook Samsung Electronics Co Ltd as the world's top smartphone maker in the fourth quarter of last year, with the South Korean company selling about half a million fewer smartphones than its rival, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Friday.

Apple sold 37 million iPhones and Samsung sold 36.5 million smartphone handsets, giving each a respective 23.9 percent and 23.5 percent market share.

We expect more information related to the other smartphones makers, like HTC,Nokia, RIM, Sony and LG in a few days more.

4Q2011 smartphones market share to change due to launch of next-gen from Apple, Nokia and Samsung.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Global market share of the major smartphone platforms may undergo some changes in the fourth quarter of 2011 due the launch of next generation smartphones from Apple, Nokia and Android-handset vendors, according to industry sources.

Apple is set to unveil to its new iPhone on October 4. The new iPhone, powered by an A5 dual-core processor, will run on iOS 5, supporting iCloud services as well as WCDMA and CDMA technologies in separated versions.

Samsung Electronics will spearhead the Android camp by introducing its new Android model, the Nexus Prime, at the upcoming CTIA Enterprise and Application trade fair in San Diego from October 11-13.

The Nexus will be powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor running on Ice Cream Sandwich OS from Google. The device will also come with a 4.65-inch display.

Nokia will unveil its Microsoft Mango-based smartphone at Nokia World to be held in London on October 26. HTC recently unveiled two Mango phones, the HTC Titan and HTC Radar.

Due to the launch of the new iPhone and Mango phones, Android's share in the global smartphone platform market is expected to drop to 40-50% in the fourth quarter, while Apple's iOS will gain another 5pp to 25%, and Microsoft's will capture 5%, the sources estimated.