Nokia Nabs Place as the United States’ Fourth Largest Smartphone Maker

The good news just keeps coming for Nokia. After announcing better than expected gains in the United States earlier this week, numbers indicate that Nokia surpassed Motorola and HTC in terms of smartphone sales this past quarter.

According to numbers collected by Counterpoint, a technology market research firm, Nokia now made up 4.1% of all smartphone sold in the United States during the last quarter. That isn’t terribly large considering that Apple and Samsung made up 33 each that same time. However these sales numbers place Nokia ahead of Motorola, ZTE and BlackBerry.

All told, Nokia’s smartphone fortunes are definitely on their way up in the United States. That’s big as it’s that market that typically defines winners and losers in the smartphone industry. While Nokia has enjoyed modest success with smartphones markets in other countries, its Windows Phone efforts have mostly fallen flat in the United States.

Thanks to new devices that expand Nokia’s Lumia line of Windows Phones into new territory, its possible that Nokia’s smartphone market share in the United States will continue to grow this quarter as well. Nokia recently announced the Lumia 1520, its first expansion into the phablet market that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 now dominates. The company is also releasing he Lumia 1320, a low-cost Lumia phablet that Nokia says will be priced low for European and Asian users who aren’t comfortable with signing two-year service agreements.

Read: Nokia goes Big with Lumia 1520 and Lumia 1320 phablets

It’s also entirely possible that Nokia’s decision to sell its Devices and Services division to Microsoft will hurt its sales in the fourth quarter. Many believe that it’s the Nokia branding that is attracting users to their Windows Phones. While Microsoft is buying the company’s handset operations, it will only get to use the Nokia branding for a limited time. The company will have to rename Nokia’s smartphones at some point.

AT&T has announced that it will begin carrying the Nokia Lumia 1520 before the holiday season ends. Unfortunately, the company hasn’t confirmed an exact day or pricing for the handset.