Nokia has rebranded its mapping and location business as HERE, describing it as “the first location cloud to deliver the world’s best maps and location experiences across multiple screens and operating systems”.

One of the first HERE products for non-Nokia devices will be a free HTML5-based maps application for iOS, which is expected to be available in the next few weeks.

Microsoft has officially revealed Windows Phone 8, its mobile operating system that’ll be available on previously-announced smartphones from Nokia, Samsung and HTC from next month.

The company says Windows Phone 8 is built to work seamlessly with Windows 8 computers, Microsoft Surface tablet devices, the Xbox 360 game console and the SkyDrive cloud storage service.

Figures from Strategy Analytics show global smartphone shipments growing by 35% year-on-year to 161.7 million devices in Q3 2012.

Samsung dominated with a record 35% market share, shipping 56.9 million smartphones worldwide.

Although ABI Research has calculated that total mobile phone shipments fell to 387.3 million units in the past quarter, the International Data Corporation has just published figures showing an increase. It says the worldwide mobile phone market grew 2.4% year-on-year in Q3 2012 to 444.5 million mobile phones.

When it comes to smartphones, it reckons 179.7 million units were shipped in the quarter; a 45.3% increase on Q3 2011.

The number of smartphones shipped worldwide increased by 32.8% year-on-year to 155.5 million in the third quarter, according to new figures from ABI Research. However, total mobile handset shipments fell by 1.9% to 387.3 million units.

40.2% of all mobile phone shipments in Q3 2012 were smartphones, up from 39.3% in the previous quarter.