Despite explosive growth in the mobile handset market as a whole, the four principle OEM brands (Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and HTC) lost 23.6 per cent of the total shipment market between them between Q1 2010 and Q2 2011, with the remaining brands growing their share only marginally, according to figures from wireless experience management firm WDS.

According to the firm, market share during this period was increasingly being assigned to OEMs within the mobile handset ‘long-tail’. This refers to the hundreds of new manufacturers that have sprung up in response to consumer demand for mobile products, yet who remain too small to register on the shipment league-tables compiled by the analyst houses, simply being acknowledged as ‘others’.

Between Q1 ’10 and Q1 ‘11 these ‘others’ had increased their collective market share by 125 per cent, from 16.8 per cent to 37.8 per cent. Lower component costs, open-source operating systems and an insatiable consumer appetite for mobile products has helped many of these smaller manufacturers, largely located across Asia, grab market share.

WDS has updated the numbers to include the remaining half of 2011, and notes that during this period, market share assigned to ‘others’ began to shrink, by 4.8 per cent in the Q3-4 2011 period alone, largely to the benefit of Samsung and Apple.

For Apple, this jump represents an increase of 61 per cent in the second half of 2011, compared to the end of Q2 2011. WDS says this is a clear indication that the continuation of the older generation iPhone 3GS is proving to be a successful strategy in capturing market share in larger, more price-sensitive market segments. In addition, Apple’s growth was boosted by significant gains in China and the US, with the debut of the Verizon and Sprint iPhone. Continuing its expansion, Apple also picked up SK Telecom and Saudi Telecom as two more iPhone carriers across the globe.

In the same period, according to the WDS stats, Samsung enjoyed a 19 per cent jump, with particularly strong demand for its high-end Galaxy S-class phones, as well as its Galaxy Ace and Galaxy mini devices for lower-tier markets. Its Windows Phone 7 and Bada Wave devices have also shown promising growth in the marketplace. WDS concludes by noting that Samsung’s presence across such a broad spectrum of market segments appears to be serving the brand well.