Mobile phone market shares are currently a hot topic. The last few years have seen the rise of the iPhone in the technology world and this has had a great impact upon the market shares.

In 2011, Apple made history as they over took the previous leaders Nokia and Samsung in the second quarter of the year with their total smartphone sales hitting an amazing 110m. Many analysts believe this leap in market shares is down to the iPhone with figures showing the shipment of handsets was up by 13% on the previous year, meaning a massive 361m handsets were sent out.

Despite losing its place as market leader, Nokia remained the biggest seller of handsets, although like their market share the number of shipments had also fallen. Nokia shipped around 20% less handsets in the second quarter, which equates to an 88.5m loss. This occurred at a time their market shares dipped to only 25% – their lowest level since way back in 1999.

Apple was seen as a ‘star performer’ during that second quarter, when it doubled its handsets to a record making 20.3 million units.

However, all of this comes at a time that there is an increasing demand for so called ‘white box manufacturers’ in China. This has spread to the markets of India, Russia, Africa and Latin America meaning that there could be a change in the market shares of the iPhone and their like very soon, as China’s Huawei, ZTE and HTC of Taiwan steadily increase their share of sales. Experts believe this phenomenon will not be short lived, as the demand for non-3G devices steadily grows.