After ruling the mobile phone space for almost a decade and a half, Nokia is relegated to second place by Samsung, according to the latest figures from market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA).

SA asserts that the global handset shipments grew a modest 3% annually to reach 368 million units during Q1 2012. Samsung claimed the top spot amongst mobile phone vendors for the first time, by capturing a record 25% market share during this quarter.

Alex Spektor, associate director at Strategy Analytics explains: “Samsung was the star performer, shipping 93.5 million handsets worldwide and capturing a record 25% market share. Five years after it captured the number-two spot from Motorola, Samsung has finally become the world’s largest handset vendor in volume terms.”

Nokia dethroned after 14 years

Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics said that Nokia’s global handset shipments declined by a staggering 24% year-on-year to 82.7 million units, within Q1 2012. According to SA, the Espoo-based cellphone giant had its sales candle burned at both ends.

This was due to stagnating low-end feature phone shipments in emerging markets, whilst the company’s Windows Phone Mango-powered Lumia smartphones weren’t able to offset the decline of the company’s legacy Symbian business.

SA said that Nokia was the world’s largest handset vendor between 1998 and 2011, a total of 14 years, before finally being knocked down to position number two by the Korean tech giant this quarter.