Smartphone sales surged by 49% to 54.3 million units during the first quarter ended 31 March, according to research by Gartner.
Overall, 314.7 million handsets were sold worldwide, with Nokia the number one supplier in both categories.
Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, said: ‘This quarter saw RIM, a pure smartphone player, make its debut in the top five mobile devices manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage points. Android's momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones increased 707% year-on-year.’
Symbian was the most popular smartphone OS globally, selling 24.1 million units, with a market share of 44.3%.
RIM came second with 10.6 million sales and a 19.4% share, followed by Apple's iPhone OS with 8.4 million sales and 15.4% share.
Meanwhile, sales of Microsoft Windows handsets were flat at 3.7 million units, seeing its market share falling by 3.4 percentage points to 6.8%.
The top three manufacturers, Nokia, Samsung and LG, took almost two-thirds of the market.