IT research firm Gartner has released some new stats on the state of the smartphone industry which, unsurprisingly, show that Apple and Samsung are still the dominant force in the market.

Samsung and Apple’s combined market share increased over Q3 2012. In the third quarter the two companies held 46.4% of the market, increasing that to 52% of the market for Q4. Samsung sold 64.5 million phones over the quarter and Apple managed 43.5 million in the same period.

Gartner’s figures also show that the global smartphone market declined in 2012 by 1.7% compared to 2011, with sales to consumers totalling 1.75 billion units for the year. This is despite a record fourth quarter that saw 207.7 million smartphones sold, an increase for Q4 of 38.3% year-on-year.

What is surprising is that Huawei’s fourth quarter was apparently good enough to propel the relatively new smartphone manufacturer into third place for the first time. The company sold 27.2 million smartphones in 2012, an increase of 73.8%, but how Huawei secured their position is a little uncertain as Gartner’s own figures show that Nokia reached 39.3 million smartphone sales worldwide.

Demand for feature phones dropped by 19.3% year-on-year with 264.4 million devices sold for the year. This number is expected to fall further this year.

Source: Engadget