Approximately 40 percent of the Android-based smartphones sold during the first quarter were produced by Samsung, according to new stats from Gartner. No other vendor nabbed more than 10 percent of the global market.
Overall, some 81 million Android-based smartphones were sold during the quarter for 56.1 percent of the market, up from 36.4 percent during the same time period last year. Apple's iOS came in second place with 22.9 percent of the market, up from 16.9 percent last year.
Symbian held on in third place with 8.9 percent, but that was a drop from 27.7 percent last year. RIM also took a dip, from 13 percent in 2011 to 6.9 percent in the first quarter. Samsung's bada platform bested Microsoft, with 2.7 percent to 1.9 percent, respectively.
In terms of overall cell phone sales, Samsung topped Nokia with 86.6 million units shipped and 20.7 percent of the market, a 25.9 percent year-over-year increase. Nokia sold 83.1 million for 19.8 percent of the market, down from 25.1 percent last year.
Apple landed at number three thanks to sales of its iPhone 4S. Cupertino sold 33.1 million smartphones during the quarter for 7.9 percent of the cell phone market, up from 3.9 percent last year.
Gartner said Apple sales were particularly strong in China, where it sold more than 5 million units to become the company's second-biggest market after the U.S.
RIM sold 9.9 million handsets in the first quarter, with its global share dropping over the last year from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. "RIM desperately needs to deliver winning BB10 products to retain users and stay competitive," Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, said in a statement. "This will be very challenging, because BB10 lacks strong developer support, and a new BB10 device will only be available in the fourth quarter of 2012."
Overall, cell phone sales dropped 2 percent during the quarter, the first time Gartner has seen a decline since the second quarter of 2009. The firm attributed the drop to lackluster sales in Asia, where the first quarter normally sees a pickup thanks to Chinese New Year. This year, however, there was "a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year," Gupta said.
Things were a bit brighter on the smartphone front, where overall sales jumped 44.7 percent year-over-year.
Samsung's next big release will be the Galaxy S III, which hits Europe later this month and the U.S. this summer. For more, see PCMag's hands on with the device and the slideshow below. There are rumors, meanwhile, that Apple is prepping a 4-inch iPhone for a late 2012 release.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
