Samsung shipped a record 63m smartphones in Q4 2012, accounting for more than 30 per cent of the 671m shipments last year. Apple sold around 47.8m in Q4 – another record quarter for the company. Shipments for the final three months alone exceeded 200m.

Nokia smartphone sales were 54 per cent down on 2011, with 35m handsets sold in 2012, compared to just over 77m in 2011. The company shipped 4.4m Lumia handsets and 2.2m running the Symbian OS in the final quarter, which produced a profit of $586m, but the company made a $3bn loss overall for the year.

RIM accounted for almost 6.7m smartphone shipments in Q4 and 31m for the year. The report says that, although RIM is launching BlackBerry 10 and a new line of smartphones, the company will ‘struggle to gain back a significant market share in 2013’.

Huawei introduced more than 23 models of smartphone during 2012 and is estimated to have shipped almost 20m handsets, delivering revenues of more than $35bn.