An outbreak of iPhone fever made Apple the hottest smartphone maker worldwide at the end of 2011 but handsets powered by Google's Android software were shaping up as true winners in the market.
Worldwide shipments of smartphones soared 54.7 percent in the final three months of 2011 from the same period a year earlier, with California-based Apple making the most popular models, according to an IDC report released Monday.
Smartphone makers shipped 157.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to 102 million in the same period the prior year, IDC reported.
A total of 491.4 million smartphones were shipped during the year, up a "strong 61.3 percent" from the 304.7 million units in 2010, according to IDC.
Apple had a 23.5 percent share of the global smartphone market, followed by Samsung and Nokia with 22.8 percent and 12.4 percent respectively.
"So-called 'hero' devices, such as Samsung's Galaxy Nexus and Apple's iPhone 4S, garner the bulk of the attention heaped on the device type," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.
"But a growing number of sub-$250 device offerings, based on the Android operating system, have allowed Google's hardware partners to grow smartphone volumes and expand the market concurrently."
While Apple tightly controls iPhone hardware and software, Google makes the Android mobile device operating system available free to smartphone manufacturers who have been building it into ranks of handsets.
Android and iPhone smartphones accounted for slightly more than 90 percent of US smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2011, industry-tracker NPD Group reported on Monday.
Android commanded 48 percent of the market compared to Apple's 43 percent, according to NPD.
NPD figures indicated that Android handsets were more popular with first-time smartphone buyers in the United States, with its share of that market at 57 percent compared to Apple's 34 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
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