Manufacturers

Prior to 2010, Nokia was the market leader. However, since then competition emerged in the Asia Pacific region with brands such as Micromax, Nexian, and i-Mobile and chipped away at Nokia's market share. Android powered smartphones also gained momentum across the region at the expense of Nokia. In India, their market share also dropped significantly to around 31 percent from 56 percent in the same period. Their share was displaced by Chinese and Indian vendors of low-end mobile phones.

In Q1 2012, based on Strategy Analytics, Samsung surpassed Nokia sold by 93.5 million units and 82.7 million units, respectively.Standard & Poor's has also downgraded Nokia to 'junk' status at BB+/B with negative outlook due to high loss and still declined with growth of Lumia smartphones was not sufficient to offset a rapid decline in revenue from Symbian-based smartphones over the next few quarters.

Top Five Worldwide Total Mobile Phone Vendors, Q4 2012
Rank	Manufacturer	Gartner	IDC
1	Samsung	22.7%	23.0%
2	Nokia	18.0%	17.9%
3	Apple	9.2%	9.9%
4	ZTE	3.4%	3.6%
5	LG	3.2%	-
5	Huawei	-	3.3%
	Others	43.5%	42.3%

Other manufacturers outside the top five include TCL Communication, lenovo, Sony Mobile Communications, Motorola. Smaller current and past players include Karboon Mobile Audiovox (nowUTStarcom), BenQ-Siemens, CECT, Coolpad, Fujitsu, HTC Corporation, Just5, Kyocera, Micromax Mobile, Mitsubishi Electric, modu, NEC, Neonode, Openmoko, Panasonic, Palm, Pantech Wireless Inc., Philips, Qualcomm Inc., Research In Motion, Sagem, Sanyo, Sharp, Sierra Wireless, SK Teletech, Soutec, Trium, Toshiba, and Vidalco.

Use of mobile phones

In general

Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes, including keeping in touch with family members, conducting business, and having access to a telephone in the event of an emergency. Some people carry more than one cell phone for different purposes, such as for business and personal use. Multiple SIM cards may also be used to take advantage of the benefits of different calling plans—a particular plan might provide cheaper local calls, long-distance calls, international calls, or roaming. The mobile phone has also been used in a variety of diverse contexts in society, for example:

• A study by Motorola found that one in ten cell phone subscribers have a second phone that often is kept secret from other family members. These phones may be used to engage in activities including extramarital affairs or clandestine business dealings.

• Some organizations assist victims of domestic violence by providing mobile phones for use in emergencies. They are often refurbished phones.

• The advent of widespread text messaging has resulted in the cell phone novel; the first literary genre to emerge from the cellular age via text messaging to a website that collects the novels as a whole.

• Mobile telephony also facilitates activism and public journalism being explored by Reuters and Yahoo! and small independent news companies such as Jasmine New in Sri Lanka.

• The United Nations reported that mobile phones have spread faster than any other technology and can improve the livelihood of the poorest people in developing countries by providing access to information in places where landlines or the Internet are not available, especially in the least developed countries. Use of mobile phones also spawns a wealth of micro-enterprises, by providing work, such as selling airtime on the streets and repairing or refurbishing handsets.

• In Mali and other African countries, people used to travel from village to village to let friends and relatives know about weddings, births and other events, which are now avoided within mobile phone coverage areas, which is usually greater than land line penetration.

• The TV industry has recently started using mobile phones to drive live TV viewing through mobile apps, advertising, social tv, and mobile TV. 86% of Americans use their mobile phone while watching TV.

• In parts of the world, mobile phone sharing is common. It is prevalent in urban India, as families and groups of friends often share one or more mobiles among their members. There are obvious economic benefits, but often familial customs and traditional gender roles play a part. It is common for a village to have access to only one mobile phone, perhaps owned by a teacher or missionary, but available to all members of the village for necessary calls.

Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers. Its best-known hardware products are the Mac line of computers, the iPod music player, the iPhone smartphone, and the iPad tablet computer. Its software includes the OS X and iOS operating systems, the iTunes media browser, the Safari web browser, and the iLife and iWork creativity and production suites. The company was founded on April 1, 1976, and incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977. The word "Computer" was removed from its name on January 9, 2007, reflecting its shifted focus towards consumer electronics after the introduction of the iPhone.

Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by revenue after Samsung Electronics, and the world's third-largest mobile phone maker after Samsung and Nokia. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012. However, the company has received criticism for its contractors' labor practices, and for Apple's own environmental and business practices.

As of November 2012, Apple maintains 394 retail stores in fourteen countries as well as the online Apple Store and iTunes Store. It is thesecond-largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization, with an estimated value of US$414 billion as of January 2013. As of September 29, 2012, the company had 72,800 permanent full-time employees and 3,300 temporary full-time employees worldwide. Its worldwide annual revenue in 2012 totalled $156 billion.