HTC has become the top US smartphone hardware vendor by shipments, moving ahead of Samsung and Apple, while Research In Motion has fallen below 10 percent share of the US market after holding nearly a quarter of it just a year ago, according to Canalys.

Measuring by shipments to retailers and carriers—rather than by sales to end users—HTC shipped more than 5.7 million smartphones in the United States in the third quarter of 2011, giving it nearly a quarter of the market, Canalys said. Next in line, “Samsung pushed Apple into third place in the US market, with shipments of its own brand devices reaching 4.9 million units,” the research firm reports. “Apple’s US smartphone shipments totaled 4.6 million in the quarter and it was affected around the world by consumers waiting for the launch of the next-generation iPhone.” Canalys credited HTC’s success, which comes largely in the United States, to “compelling and differentiated products” across the major carriers, including a strong range of 4G Android phones.

Six months ago, Canalys reported that Apple led the US market with 31 percent share, with HTC taking second place and the leading spot among Android vendors. By the second quarter of 2011, HTC was up to 21 percent North American share and Apple down to 25 percent. (Canalys seems to provide slightly different data cuts each quarter, sometimes switching from U.S. numbers to North American numbers.)

While HTC continues its rise on the strength of premium Android phones (and a few Windows devices), RIM’s BlackBerry line is struggling in the US. Shipment volumes declined 58 percent from a year ago, and the US market share dropped from 24 percent in the third quarter of 2010 to 9 percent in third quarter of 2011, Canalys says. “RIM’s market share has fallen below 10 percent for the first time, and the current outlook for it in the US is certainly bleak,” Canalys Senior Analyst Tim Shepherd said in a press release. “While Apple can for now get away with not having a 4G smartphone, no other vendor in the US can. RIM must deliver a competitive high-end 4G smartphone in early 2012.” Market research firm Juniper reports that HTC doubled its worldwide shipments year-over-year to 13.2 million. That was good enough to pass RIM, which was down 8 percent year-over-year to 11.9 million shipments.

RIM’s US losses have been offset somewhat by strong growth worldwide, including 59 percent growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and 56 percent growth in the Asia-Pacific region, “largely driven by the continued popularity of BBM, its BlackBerry Messenger service,” Canalys said. RIM’s reputation recently took a hit with an extended service outage, but RIM says its worldwide subscriber base has risen from 50 million to 70 million over the past year.

The Canalys report also confirms the global success of Samsung. We recently reported that Samsung passed Apple and Nokia in worldwide smartphone shipments, based on data from Strategy Analytics. Canalys notes that Samsung’s 27.8 million smartphones in the most recent quarter is “the second highest quarterly shipment total in the market’s history, behind only Nokia’s Q4 2010 performance.” Samsung is the top vendor in the Asia-Pacific, Western Europe and Latin American regions. Worldwide, smartphone shipments grew 49 percent year-over-year to 120.4 million units. Samsung, HTC and others are driving the success of the Android mobile operating system, which holds nearly 70 percent share in the United States and 57 percent worldwide, Canalys said.

Listing image by Photograph by Brian McKechnie