According to the IDC, in the worldwide smartphone market vendors shipped 179.7 million units in 3Q12 compared to 123.7 million units in 3Q11. The 45.3% year-over-year growth was slightly above IDC's forecast of 45.2% for the quarter.

Share of Samsung in smartphones market rose from 22.7% in 3Q 2011 to 31.3% in the same period of 2012. The Korean company shipped 56.3 million smartphones in 3Q 2012, which grew by 100.4% year over year (28.1 million smartphones).

Sales of Samsung Galaxy S III exceeded 20 million units in the first 100 days after its launch in May 2012.

The US-based Apple sold only 26.9 million smartphones in the 3Q 2012 and its share made up 15% (13.8% in 3Q 2011). The sales of Apple rose by 57.3% year over year in the reporting period.

Other companies are behind Apple and Samsung and the gap is increasing. Share of Research In Motion (RIM, trademark Blackberry) decreased from 9.6% to 4.3% and HTC – from 10.3% to 4% in the reporting period. In 3Q 2012, RIM decreased sales from 11.8 million in 3Q 2011 to 7.7 million in 3Q 2012 (-34.7%), while HTC’s sales fell from 12.7 million to 7.3 million in the reporting period (-42.5%).

At the same time, share of Chinese ZTE in the smartphones market jumped from 3.3% to 4.2% in the reporting period. The company increased its sales by 82.9% to 7.5 million units.