Canalys (http://www.canalys.com) has released its Q3 2011 country-level smart phone shipment estimates to clients, revealing that HTC has taken the top spot in the US market, pushing Apple to third place.

At the same time, a particularly strong performance from Samsung saw it become the world’s number one smart phone vendor, according to the research group. Overall, the worldwide market grew 49% year-on-year to 120.4 million units. With year-on-year and sequential growth of 252% and 60% respectively, Samsung shipped 27.3 million smart phones under its own brand to capture a 23% share, becoming the number one vendor in APAC, Western Europe and Latin America, ahead of Nokia, Apple and RIM respectively

In the United States, the world’s largest smart phone market, HTC, shone in Q3 2011, edging out Apple and Samsung to become the leading vendor. HTC shipped 5.7 million smart phones in the US under its own brand, giving it almost a quarter of the market, as well as an estimated 70,000 units under the T-Mobile brand, says Canalys Vice President and Principal Analyst Chris Jones.

He says Samsung pushed Apple into third place in the US market, with shipments of its own-brand devices reaching 4.9 million units. Apple’s US smart phone 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 (the iPhone 4S).

"Apple did not stir the usual excitement levels in the industry with the announcement of the iPhone 4S, but that was never likely to dampen volumes, due to pent up demand from the later than expected launch and the addition of Sprint as a third carrier," says Jones. "Early iPhone 4S sales have shown this is the case, and we expect to see a strong Q4 for Apple.’