iPhone makes up a third of all smart phone sales

2011 was the year of the smart phone, and one smart phone outsells all others: the iPhone. Apple's smart phone owns a third of the smart phone market -- while Nokia's new Windows Phone is doing less well.

The new iPhone 4S was the best-selling phone in the last month, with nearly a quarter of all smart phones flying off shop shelves being a 4S, according to data from GfK quoted by the Financial Times.

Of course, we should note that Apple makes just three phones (albeit it still sells older models). By contrast, Samsung, HTC and others make a wider range and so any individual phone may not make as good a showing in the sales charts. Samsung claims it's sold 300 million phones sold in 2011, and the Samsung Galaxy S2 was the biggest-selling phone behind the 4S in the last month.

Meanwhile, if you add up the sales of every Android phone then more Android phones are sold than Apple phones -- almost double, in fact.

But that said, the top 15 phone sales chart features no less than five versions of the iPhone, including the older iPhone 3G and 3GS. In total the various generations of iPhone make up more than a third of smart phone sales, according to GfK.

Of course, how many of those iPhone owners regret their iPurchase?

One phone notable by its absence from the sales charts top 10 is the Nokia Lumia 800. Nokia's great white hope is the first Nokia to be powered by Windows Phone and is backed by a huge marketing campaign. We like it a lot, but it doesn't seem to have made an impact on the man in the street yet. Still, it's early days for Nokia and Windows Phone, with the Lumia 710 and rumoured 900 set to arrive next year.

One company with news to celebrate is BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, with three BlackBerry Curve phones in the top 10 -- small comfort after a year of plummeting profits.