IDC has released their latest worldwide smartphone data, and it reveals that Apple’s global market share grew to 25.1% in 2012. Total iPhone shipments increased 46.9% last year, from 93.1 million handsets in 2011 to 136.8 million in 2012.
Controlling a quarter of smartphone shipments, Apple was squarely in second place worldwide, in a two-horse race with market leader Samsung — the only other company among the top five vendors that managed to grow its share.
Samsung was way out in front in 2012, its shipments grew by 129.1%, more than doubling Apple’s year-over-year improvement. Samsung also saw its market share jump from 19% in 2011 to 39.6% in 2012, almost 15 points ahead of Apple.
Third place Nokia continued its slide, dropping 54.6% from 2011. The Finnish company got a small 6.4% of 2012 smartphone shipments.
HTC took 4th place with a 6% share, down 25.2% from 2011. That allowed it to edge out Research in motion, which also had 6% of the market, losing out to HTC by 100,000 units to put it in fifth place.
