Nokia Leads Microsoft Smartphone Vendors (MSFT, NOK, AAPL, GOOG)

The Windows Phone 7 operating system from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) shipped on 2.7 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2011. Microsoft’s leading handset vendor was Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), the first time that Finnish company has gained that distinction. Nokia shipped 900,000 Windows Phone-based handsets in the quarter.

Compared with full year totals of 93 million iPhones shipped by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and 238 million handsets shipped with the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), the Nokia/Microsoft totals are very small. But the companies had to start somewhere.

The vendor that took the most damage from the Nokia/Microsoft gain was HTC Corp., which lost market share in both the Android and Windows Phone markets according to research firm Strategy Analytics, and is “now at risk of being caught in a pincer movement between two giants of Samsung in Android and Nokia in Microsoft.”