By Sven Grundberg and Gustav Sandstrom Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES STOCKHOLM -(Dow Jones)- Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) snatched the title of world's largest mobile handset vendor from Nokia Corp. (NOK) in the first three months of the year, confirming Nokia's continued decline as it struggles to keep pace with fast moving competition. Gartner, which counts sales of handsets to customers, rather than the numbers shipped by manufacturers, said Samsung sold 86.6 million mobile devices in the quarter and had a global market share of 20.7%, up from 16.1% the year before. Nokia, which sold 83.2 million handsets, saw its total market share fall to 19.8% from 25.1% a year ago. The report is yet another sign of how Nokia continues to be battered by bruising competition both in the high end of the market from Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhone, and from cheaper devices running Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android software. Overall, 144 million smartphones were sold in the quarter, up 45% from the same period in 2011. Smartphones running Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android operating system accounted for 56.1% of all smartphone sales, up from 36.4%, while Apple's iOS platform powered 22.9% of smartphones sold, up from 16.9% a year earlier. Nokia's Symbian operating system, which the Finnish company is in the process of replacing with Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows Phone platform for its new smartphones, accounted for 8.6% of smartphone sales in the quarter, falling from 27.7% a year ago. Total mobile device sales declined 2% year-on-year in the quarter to 419.1 million units, due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia Pacific region, Gartner said. "The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year," said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. -By Sven Grundberg and Gustav Sandstrom, Dow Jones Newswires; +46-8-5451-3098; sven.grundberg@dowjones.com
