According to research from IDC, vendors shipped a total of 101 million smartphones during the fourth quarter of 2010 compared to the total of 92 millions PCs.

The fourth quarter sales of smartphones (100.9 million unit) showed a 87.2% from the 53.9 million smartphones shipped during the same quarter in 2009. During the full year a total of 302.6 million smartphones were shipped worldwide, up 74.4% from the 173.5 million in 2009.

PC sales, however, showed only a13.6% increase over the full year - from 305 million units to 346 million and in the forth quarter the growth was a mere 2.7%.

Commenting on the fourth quarter smartphone sales, IDC senior analyst Ramon Llamas said:

"Android continues to gain [market share] by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market. It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors' smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to market leader Symbian."

He also commented on the impact of the entrance two the market of two "refreshed operating systems" Symbian^3 and Windows Phone 7.

"In their first quarter of commercial availability, both Symbian^3 and Windows Phone 7 ramped up quickly, just in time for the holidays. By the end of the quarter, Nokia had shipped five million Symbian^3 units while Windows Phone 7 vendors shipped more than 1.5 million units.

While Nokia remained the leading smartphone vendor it showed the least growth in Quarter 4, 2010. Samsung, with a growth of over 300% over the year almost 440% in the final quarter, took top honors for increased sales, due largely to the popularity of its Galaxy S series smartphones.

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For more information:

IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker

IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker

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