You see, back 5 years ago, hardly anyone I know uses Apple’s product, but now every teenager that I know is talking about Apple. Yes, specifically the iPhone. Back then majority is using Nokia, and those that wanted to stay different would be getting an Ericsson. Those that wanted something more special would be getting a Samsung Blue-i and then a Samsung True-I, or the Motorola Razr lineup. Panasonic is making waves with the girls on their tiny G50 phones. There’s no such thing as an Apple iPhone.

Fast forward few years, and we got iPhone being the talk of the town. Apple might be popular in the States and UK, but not the rest of the world, as they’re tied to telco carriers, and not every country is getting the iPhone, as compared to wide availability of Nokia and others.

Apple is selling 10 million iPhones in its first year, and back then everyone was like ‘meh’. But now, they’re selling 14.1 million iPhones every three months! That’s according to the latest IDC numbers. Apple is moving into fourth place on its Top 5 list of mobile phone vendors worldwide. That moves Apple ahead of RIM thus confirming a Steve Jobs boast made during Apple’s Q4 earnings calls. Sony Ericsson has been pushed off the list for the first since 2004 when IDC began tracking the top 5 vendors.

But that’s not the only interesting bit of information we see in the IDC numbers tallying all cellphone shipments, not just smartphones. Overall market leader Nokia, slipped from a 36.5 percent to a 32.4 percent market share since the same quarter last year. IDC notes that Nokia is starting to show some weakness in emerging markets, one of Nokia’s last strongholds, with smaller regional handset makers starting to grab market share away from Espoo in Asia/Pacific and Latin America. It’s not doing well in smartphones either, with IDC claiming that Android devices are gaining momentum at Nokia’s expense.

SOURCE via Engadget