Apple overtakes Nokia as largest handset vendor

Research firm Strategy Analytics reported that as of today Apple has overtaken Nokia has the world's largest vendor of mobile handsets by revenue. This news comes after both companies released their quarterly earnings on Thursday.

The firm also noted that Google's Android based device manufactures are fighting hard to cement the third place and will continue to push forward and overtake Apple by late 2011. With Nokia's partnership with Microsoft we can expect that Nokia will also be working towards worming its way back to the top spot.

While Nokia will remain the world's largest handset maker in terms of shipments having shipped 108.5 million devices. Apple meanwhile claims to have sold 18.6 million iPhones. The difference in volume is an interesting comparison.

Since the release of iOS and the iPhone back in 2007, Apple has built a good ecosystem of software and hardware which has helped them thrive. Google was the other company that made a quick climb over the past few years with Android OS, which in the hands on many big mobile manufactures has come in numerous shapes and sizes. So it would be interesting to see how adding Microsoft's Windows OS would affect the mobile ecosystem in the coming years