Taiwan-based smartphone maker HTC sold more smartphones than any other company in the US during the third quarter of 2011, while Nokia is plotting its US smartphone comeback with a range of Windows Mobile devices.

According to technology market research company Canalys, HTC shipped 5.7 million smartphones in the world’s largest smartphone market under its own brand in the third quarter to give it nearly a quarter of the market share. It also shipped 70,000 devices through T-Mobile.

“However you count it, HTC has become a deserved leader in the US smartphone market. This is an awesome achievement for HTC, which has built a premium brand in a highly competitive market in just a few short years.” Canalys VP and principal analyst Chris Jones said.

Samsung was in second place with 4.9 million smartphones shipped during the period, with Apple following in third with 4.6 million units shipped. iPhone sales slowed dramatically in the immediate run-up to the announcement of the latest iPhone 4S in October but are expected to be strong in the final quarter of the year.

Despite a refreshed BlackBerry range, RIM’s US smartphone market share dropped to just 9 percent in Q3 2011, from 24 percent in the same quarter a year ago, a 58 percent drop. However its position elsewhere is more positive, growing 59 percent in EMEA and 56 percent in APAC compared to a year ago.

Meanwhile, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has said the company plans to make a major comeback in the US smartphone market in 2012 with a range of Windows Phone devices. In an interview with Bloomberg, Elop said Nokia plans to “grow significant share in this market” by offering a wide range of Windows Phone devices through a number of operators in addition to the Lumia 800 and 710 announced last week.

Nokia has struggled to sell smartphones based on the aging Symbian platform as it faced increased competition from Apple and Android and hopes Windows Phone will be able to turn things around.

“Our plans are to be very competitive and to go head-on with the appropriate devices at the appropriate price points. We know we need to get volume moving and we need from that to develop economies of scale. And then as we do more and more differentiation, we expand gross margin,” Elop told Bloomberg.

He added that the Windows Phone devices will provide users with access to popular applications that weren’t compatible with Nokia’s previous smartphones. “There’s a small number of applications, in the hundreds, that are must haves, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure those are on our platform,” he said.