Nokia sells over 111 million phones in Q3

Third quarter shipments of Nokia handsets grew by nearly 11% over the previous quarter, bumping up its mobile phone market share to almost 40%.

Nokia, the long-running global handset leader, once again dominated sales during the past three month period. According to research firm iSuppli, Nokia’s total shipments totaled 111.7 million units, up 10.8% over the company’s previous quarter. This Q3 growth exceeded the sum total growth of the top four major mobile-handset suppliers combined.

The firm also noted that "smart phone" shipments grew 53.8% year-to-year. That is where the meat of Nokia’s existence is. The increased attraction to full-featured phones was also likely helped by the launch of Apple’s iPhone, which breathed a highly unusual amount of excitement into the mobile phone market.

On the flip side, the iPhone actually hurt Nokia’s presence in the US. Year-to-year sales in North America were down 1.7%, but the slack was picked up in a big way by other developing countries. In total, 283 million cell phones were shipped during the period, 39.5% of which came from Nokia.