Apple's New Hong Kong store, photo via Casey Lau
According to new figures from Gartner, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) posted a stellar fourth quarter, increasing 121.4 percent on the previous year. On the strength of the iPhone, the Cupertino company bumped off LG as the third-largest handset maker, and also became the world’s dominant smartphone maker, grabbing 23.8 percent of that market.
Recent weeks have been great in terms of sales for Apple, but as my colleague Charlie points out in a very thorough post earlier today, the company is coming under scrutiny regarding labor issues with its suppliers.
Besides Apple, Chinese vendors ZTE (HKG:0763; SHE:000063) and Huawei (SHE:002502) were the fastest growing manufacturers in the Q4. ZTE in particular, which is planning a big push in the American market this year, did especially well moving up to fourth place in the mobile market.
In the charts below you play the animation to see the gradual rise of these three companies over the past two year, overtaking companies like LG and RIM. In the second graphic, you can view the mobile OS wars, marked by the slide of Symbian, and the rapid ascent of Android and iOS.