Bangalore: Just couple of weeks after surpassing Apple’s iPhone sales, Samsung has achieved another feather in its crown, this time it beat Nokia to become world’s top cell phone maker, reports ZDNet.  

IHS iSuppli, a market intelligence firm said, Samsung became the top cell phone maker in the world,  displacing Nokia from the top spot for the first time in 14 years.

With the basic mantra for 2012 "live by the Smartphone; die by the Smartphone," Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS, writes about what we expected of cell phones this year. In nut shell—Smartphones to represent the fastest growing segment of mobile market, accounting to over more than 50 percent of the wireless handset sales in 2012. Samsung’s success and Nokia’s struggle to have a strong footprint in the mobile market to be entirely steered by the success or failure of respective company’s Smartphone sales.

While Samsung is predicted to be the top cell phone selling company, with 29 percent of worldwide cellphone shipments, up from 24 percent in 2011, Nokia’s sales were expected to drop from 30 percent in 2011 to 24 percent in 2012. The rest-- Apple, LG, and ZTE respectively, marked their presence in top 5 mobile phone brands.

Samsung rules the roost with its remarkable raise in 20 percent of global shipments in 2011 to 28 percent in 2012; Apple following close on heels of Samsung is at second position with slight annual increase from 19 to 20 percent.

Nokia, however, lags far behind if only Smartphone market is considered, tumbled from 16 percent to just 5 percent. The other once up on a time leader in mobile segment like HTC and RIM, suffered shipment declines and slide out of top 5 mobile phone brands.

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