Android Puts HTC on the Map

NEW YORK, (TheStreet) -- Google's (GOOG Quote) Android helped phone maker HTC become the fastest-growing smartphone shop in the third quarter.

While overall mobile phone sales remained flat compared with year-ago levels, the smartphone segment of the market is still hot, logging a 12% annual gain, according to Gartner.

And the trends within the smartphone sector continue to show more of the big shift from stalwarts like Nokia (NOK Quote) and Motorola (MOT Quote) to a quickly rising cohort of HTC, Apple (AAPL Quote) and Research In Motion (RIMM Quote).

The shift is a familiar one for Nokia, which has been helpless in its attempts to defend its top spot against the popular iPhone, the expanding consumer appeal of BlackBerrys, and now the rise of Android-powered Google phones.

Verizon's Other Droid Phone

Nokia saw modest 4% growth in the past year. But that lagged behind the industry's 12% growth rate, causing the Finnish phone giant to lose 3 percentage points of its share of the market.