According to research firm Gartner, despite the fact the smartphones based on Google’s increasingly popular Android operating system brought about a notable leap in global handset sales in 2010, the global handset market share of Nokia witnessed a fall during the year.

Going by the statistics shared by Gartner, worldwide handset sales to end users soared 32 percent to 1.6 billion units last year. There was a 72 percent increase - to 297 million units - in smartphone sales year-on-year; with the sales of Android-based handsets increasing ten times, to 67 million units.

However, the global handset market share of Nokia fell to 28.9 percent for the full year 2010, from 36.4 percent in 2009. During the fourth quarter alone, Nokia’s share plunged to 27.1 percent from a notable 36.6 percent a year earlier. 

The figures come after research firm Canalys last week said Android had toppled Nokia Corp.'s (NOK) Symbian as the world's most widespread smartphone platform in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Furthermore, with Nokia’s ‘461.3 million units’ annual mobile phone sales to end-users marking a 7.5-percent year-on-year drop in market share, Gartner’s research VP Carolina Milanesi said: “Nokia and LG saw their market share erode in 2010 as they came under increasing pressure to refine their smartphone strategies.”

Clearly, Nokia’s future rests largely on the strategic announcements the company is likely to make on February 11; as well as on how effectively it can execute on those plans within the limited time-frame.