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Driven by the healthy sales of smartphones and low-end devices, global handset sales to end users reached 340 million units in the fourth quarter of 2009, registering an 8.3 percent increase from the same period in 2008. Smartphone sales led the way with 53.8 million units sold during the quarter, up 41.1 percent from the year-ago period. However, for the entire year of 2009, cell phone sales fell 0.9 percent from last year to a total of 1.211 billion units sold.

In terms of actual sales, Nokia continues its lead with 36.4 percent share of the market despite its 2.2 percent loss over the last year. Following behind Nokia were Samsung with 19.5 percent and LG with 10 percent, which both experienced an increase in market share. Motorola went down from the third place to the fourth with its share dropping from 4.8 percent to 3.9 percent, while Sony Ericsson remained in the fifth position with its share dipping from 7.5 percent to 4.5 percent.

Considering smartphone operating systems, although the Symbian OS still holds the top spot, it saw a 5.4 percent slump to 46.9 percent in 2009. Gartner noted Symbian has lost most of its share to strong smartphone rivals like Apple’s iPhone OS, whose share jumped from 8.2 percent to 14.4 percent, and RIM’s BlackBerry, which grew from 16.6 percent to 19.9 percent. Another great performer in 2009 was Android, Google’s open-source platform, as its share has soared from 0.5 percent to 3.9 percent year-over-year.

Looking forward to the ongoing year, Gartner predicts Android’s success to continue as more manufacturers are going to launch Android based handsets. iPhone’s market share is also expected to expand with more carriers getting to sell the device. The research firm predicts sales as a whole will return to low-double-digit growth, but fierce price competition will put pressure on the average selling prices.