After reporting a record first quarter performance, Samsung has now also taken the title of being the world’s biggest vendor of mobile phones, two research firms have confirmed.

This achievement marks the end of Nokia’s reign as the world’s biggest mobile phone vendor, a title it managed to hold on to for almost one and a half decades or 14 years to be exact.

The data comes from IHS iSuppli and Strategy Analytics.

According to iSuppli’s data, Samsung has shipped 92 million mobile phones for Q1 2012.

Even though this was a 13 percent decrease from the 106 million it shipped during the same quarter of last year, it still edged Nokia, which shipped 83 million smartphones in last quarter.

Nokia’s mobile phones sales figure for Q1 2012 is a 27 percent decline compared to its 116 million during the comparable quarter last year.

Meanwhile, Apple trails at number three with 35 million phones (all of them smartphones as Apple only sells iPhones) shipped within the first quarter.

This is a decrease of 5 percent for Apple which sold 37 million phones in Q1 2011.

LG comes in fourth with 14 million phones sold for the quarter, according to IHS iSuppli, a 23 percent decline from its performance in the first quarter of last year when it shipped 18 million mobile phones.

RIM rounds up the top 5 with 11 million, a 21 percent decrease from its showing of 14 million last year’s first quarter.

When it comes to smartphones, however, Apple is leading, according to iSuppli. It sold 35 million smartphones while Samsung is said by the research firm to have only notched a 32 million unit smartphone sales figure for the just-ended quarter.

Samsung declined 11 percent in smartphone sales compared to its 36 million sales in Q1 2011, iSuppli says.

Nokia is third with 12 million units last Q2 2012, a 39 percent decrease from 20 million units in Q1 2011.

RIM is fourth with 11 million (-21 percent, 14 million for Q1 2011) and LG clinched fifth with 4 million units for Q1 2012 (-19 percent, 5 million for Q1 2011).

Meanwhile, Strategy Analytics says the same thing.

Samsung, it revealed sold 93.5 million mobile phones for Q1 2012 for a 25.4 percent global market share, a marked increase from its 68.9 million showing for Q1 2011.

Nokia is said to have sold 82.7 million mobile phones in Q1 2012 clinching a 22.5 percent market share, a big drop from its 108.5 million sales in the first quarter of 2011.

Apple is said to have sold 35.1 million iPhones, a big jump from 18.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011 getting the Cupertino, California-based giant a global market share of 9.5 percent.

As for smartphones, Strategy Analytics begs to differ with IHS iSuppli: it indicates that Apple was beaten by Samsung in terms of sales.

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung shipped 44.5 million smartphones for Q1 2012, a massive increase from 12.6 million units for Q1 2011.

It garnered Samsung a 30.6 percent market share in smartphone sales for the first quarter, the research firm said.

Meanwhile, Apple shipped 35.1 million units in Q1 2012 compared to 18.6 million in Q1 2011 getting it a market share of 24.1 percent.

Nokia, on the other hand shipped 11.9 million units in Q1 2012, Strategy Analytics said, getting it an 8.2 percent market share, a big drop from 24.2 million units in Q1 2011 which garnered the struggling Finnish mobile phones giant a 46.2 percent market share of the smartphone industry then.

Samsung remains very optimistic about its performance for the coming quarters.

Images from Strategy Analytics, IHS iSuppli, rsepulveda on Flickr (CC)

About Solon Harmony Dolor

A passion for technology and journalism makes this upcoming writer very interested in social media and technology news. Fresh from finishing an English and Journalism degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, he aims to bring interesting news to our readers .