Apple moved 27.4 million iPhone 5 units globally in the fourth quarter of 2012, more than any other smartphone and good enough to claim 12.6 percent of the world smartphone market share.

A new report from Strategy Analytics said this is the first time the Apple flagship has been sold the most in the world. In the third quarter of 2012, the iPhone 5 moved 6 million units worldwide, only one third of the Samsung Galaxy S3’s 18 million units globally.

According to the report, the iPhone 4S came in second in the fourth quarter of 2012, with 17.4 million units shipped worldwide and an 8 percent global market share. 

Executive director at Strategy Analytics Neil Mawston said, “Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S together accounted for 1 in 5 of all smartphones shipped worldwide in Q4 2012.”

In the fourth quarter of 2012, the GS3 slipped to third place with 15.4 million units sold and a 7.1 percent share, compared with the 10.4 percent global market share Samsung’s flagship held in the third quarter of 2012.

Still, Samsung rules the global mobile phone market overall. A study last week from Gartner said the Korean handset maker sold 107 million phones worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012, which accounted for 22.7 percent of the global mobile phone market. Nokia was the next closest that quarter with 18 percent of the global mobile phone market share.