1.8 billion mobile device units were sold to end users worldwide in 2011, up 11.1% on 2010, according to Gartner. Smartphones accounted for 31% of all device sales with 472 million units sold, up 58% year on year.

The analyst firm's findings chime with those released earlier this year by Strategy Analytics. Apple has displaced Samsung as the leading smartphone vendor in the field, with a 23.8% share of the high end handset market in the fourth quarter of last year, and 19% across the whole 12 months. Apple sold 35.5 million iPhones in the last three months, according to Gartner.