Samsung takes over Nokia as world’s top mobile handset company.

Worldwide sales of mobile phones were 419.1 million in the first quarter of 2012 (Q1 2012), a 2% decline on sales in the comparable quarter last year, according to Gartner.

While tier-one players such as Nokia were adversely impacted on sell-in numbers (sold into retail), white-box vendors have suffered the most as they were unable to adjust production and left with a build-up in stocks by the end of the quarter.

Gartner expects this inventory will be sold during the next couple of quarters, because the channel is likely to lower the prices to dispose of the stock.

Samsung displaced Nokia as the world's top mobile handset vendor during the quarter, with sales of 86.6 million units, a 25.9% increase from last year. Nokia's handset sales, decreased by 22.7% to 83.2 million units.

Samsung also took back the world's No. 1 smar-tphone position from Apple, selling 38 million smart-phones worldwide.

According to reports, Samsung's Android-based smart-phone sales in Q1 2012 were more than 40% of Android-based smart-phone sales worldwide while no other company achieved more than a 10% share of the market.

The combined share of Apple and Samsung rose to 49.3%, up from 29.3% in Q1 2011, widening their lead over Nokia, which saw its smart-phone market share drop to 9.2%.

Research In Motion (RIM), company that makes the blackberry phones generated 9.9 million of its total sales in Q1 2011-12, and its global share fell to 2.4% due to increased competition in international market.

In the smart-hone OS market, Android occupied more than half of all smart-phone sales at 56.1% in the first quarter of 2012.

Research has confirmed that by rival of new products in mature markets based on new versions of the Android and Windows Phone operating systems, and the launch of the Apple iPhone 5 will help drive a stronger second half in Western Europe and North America.