The mobile phone industry continues its march toward smartphone dominance as consumer interest in feature phones wanes, according to market research firm IDC. Record sales of Apple's iPhone in the fourth quarter pushed the company into third place among all mobile phone vendors, up from fifth place last year. Samsung's strong smartphone sales kept it in second place, but edged it closer in marketshare to the declining long-time market leader, Nokia.

The overall mobile market grew just 6.1 percent year-over-year for the fourth quarter, less than the 9.3 percent growth from last year and less than the overall 11 percent growth rate of the market for the year.

Read the comments on this post