It seems that Nokia’s hard work is finally starting to pay off after it struggled to get into the US market for years now. Counterpoint Research reports that Nokia has reached the fourth spot among smartphone vendors in the US, surpassing several makers in Q3 of this year.

Nokia holds just over 4% of the market and the numbers sound less impressive. But for real consequences, you’ve to look deeper. In Q3 2012 Nokia barely registered 0.7%, while in Q2 this year, Nokia was at 1.4%.

Nokia Mobiles Phone

So Nokia has more than doubled its market in 3 months and now is ahead of former leaders like HTC, Motorola and BlackBerry. This Nokia’s success is due to its carrier exclusivity strategy, which is starting to work, finally, according to Counterpoint.

Carriers get different devices – e.g. two pre-paid carriers (MetroPCS and Aio) have one Lumia each, Verizon has two, T-Mobile has three and AT&T has 5 Lumias at the moment. AT&T got the Lumia 925, while Verizon has the Lumia 928.

Nokia Ranking in Market

Apart from Nokia, the US market is very similar. With a third of market each, Apple and Samsung are nearly even. Samsung has gone 10 points up from 26.6% in Q2 2012, while Apple has a 0.1% lead but barely grown in the last year. LG is the next biggest vendor with 8.6% and in third place.