On account of the heavy sale of 'iPhone 4S' smartphones, Apple dethroned LG to become the third highest mobile phone manufacturer in the world for the final quarter of the year 2011.

As per the research firm IDC, Apple's sale of hands sets amounted to a whopping 37 millions, while LG could sell only 17.7 million handsets.

Nokia retained the first place with a sale of 113.5 million phones during the same period though its sale was lesser by 8.2% compared to the sale in the forth quarter of the previous year.

Obviously, Samsung took the second place, selling 97.6 million handsets, amounting to 20.9% more than the sale during the same period last year. Due to the high popularity of the 'Galaxy phones' the total sale for the whole year crossed 300 million mark for the first time.

Apple advanced its position from fifth to third mainly because of the heavy sale of iPhones. The yearly growth was a stunning 128%.

Incidentally, iPhone 4S recorded exorbitant sale in UK and Japan.

Nokia held on to its number one position by targeting India, Africa and central Europe.

While smartphone is the favorite of the technically sound and modern youth, feature phone is popular among all categories of people. The advantage with it is that it is easy to use and much cheaper.

Ramon Llamas of IDC noted that the feature phone retains its popularity by becoming more like the smartphone, by adopting mobile internet, third party applications etc. To a great extend, this checks the migration of the users to the smartphone market.