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June 2, 2008

During the first quarter of this year, LG beat Sony Ericsson in becoming the fourth largest handset maker worldwide, according to the latest research brief from Gartner.

The research firm reported that Sony sold about 22.1 million units in the quarter, while LG sold 23.6 million.

Sony Ericsson’s market share for the quarter stands at a little over 7.49 percent, while LG grabbed 8 percent of the global market. Not a wide margin, but nevertheless a gain for LG.

While the iPhone was still in second place in the U.S. market, Apple's market share dropped from 26.7 percent the previous quarter to 19.2 percent. Palm held its place at third, increasing its share to 13.4 percent, up from 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter.

Samsung was fourth with 8.6 percent of the U.S. smartphone market.

For its part, Nokia continued to dominate the global market, selling over 115.18 million handsets during the quarter and increasing its market share to 39.1 percent, up from 35.5 percent in 2007.

Samsung held its place at second, increasing its market share to 14.4 percent from 12.4 percent and selling 42.4 million handsets.

Motorola's share slipped to 10.2 percent compared with 18.4 percent for the same quarter in 2007.

In a seperate report, IDC found that Research In Motion sold the most smartphones in the U.S. for the first quarter of this year, more than doubling the nearest competitor's market share.

For the first quarter, RIM’s market share jumped to 44.5 percent from 35.1 percent in the previous quarter.

RIM has successfully broadened its customer base beyond simply business professionals, according to IDC.

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Source: Gartner.