Apple Now Third Largest Mobile Phone Manufacturer in the World

It’s been more than a week since Apple published the results of its record-breaking quarter, and the news is still paying off in dividends for the company.

Last week we told you that the 37 million iPhones Apple sold during the last three months made it the number one smartphone manufacturer in the world. But what we didn’t know was that it also made Apple one of the top three mobile phone makers…

According to IDC, a marketing research firm, the overwhelming popularity of the iPhone 4S helped push Apple past LG and into the number three spot on the list of top mobile phone manufacturers on the planet. That’s including feature phones. And we’re not just talking about the last quarter of 2011 — we’re talking about the entire year.

That’s pretty incredible when you consider that feature phones still account for more than 60% of all cell phone sales, and Apple doesn’t sell anything but smartphones. In fact, if you look at the graph above, Apple is the only company on the list that doesn’t sell feature handsets.

Although it doesn’t look like Apple will be climbing the chart any further anytime soon — Samsung and Nokia have a fairly hefty lead — it’s pretty impressive that the “computer company” managed to become the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in a matter of 5 years.

[MacRumors]