HTC, Not (AAPL) (RIMM) (MMI) Top Smartphone Vendor in U.S.

In the fourth quarter there was a new company ruling the smartphone roost in the U.S., as Taiwan-based HTC surpassed major vendors like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM) and Motorola (NYSE:MMI) with a 20 percent share of the market.

Apple and Blackberry fell to a market share of 19 percent each, while Motorola was fourth with a 16 percent market share, according to a report by NPD Group.

The remaining 26 percent U.S. smartphone share was spread among Samsung, LG, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and HP/Palm (NYSE:HPQ), among others.

While HTC generated the majority of its sales in the fourth quarter from phones equipped with Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform, the thought is it was actually the debut of devices running Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7 that brought them to the No. 1 spot.

As for specific device sales, Apple is still No. 1, for 2010 with the iPhone 4 (16 and 32GB varieties combined) taking the top spot and its prior iPhone 3GS taking #2.