MANILA, Philippines — Remember that joke about the man who became a millionaire after marrying the woman of his dreams? And how he used to be a billionaire before tying the knot with her? (Note: Please feel free to change the characters’ gender based on your preferences.)

Unfortunately for Nokia, the company plays the leading role in a paraphrased version of the story. The mobile phone vendor has shown that it is not impossible to be numero uno and, at the same time, virtually unimportant in one of the world’s currently most exciting industries.

Data recently unveiled by market research firms show that the mobile vendor from Finland continues to be the leading mobile phone maker in terms of volume, selling more handsets overall than any other manufacturer. The real story that these figures tell, however, is rather disheartening for Nokia fans (and this corner is one of those millions wishing Nokia recover its mojo).

Microsoft's partner in crime in the smartphone space continues to suffer humiliating setbacks at the bottom heap, with having lost some 75 percent of its market valuation during the last four years, one of the more painful.

Worse, although it remains the leader of the pack, it is no longer the alpha dog. The company is holding on to its lead, barely. It accounted for 23 percent of the total market in 2011. Compare that with 38 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

There are, however, some silver linings. Nokia’s fourth quarter 2011 revenue grew 11 percent from the previous quarter, although it fell 21 percent year over year. Shipments rose 6 percent quarter over quarter.

These, and Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft, could be reasons for optimism regarding the company’s future. Its Lumia smartphones seem to be selling well in Europe and Asia.

Huawei's Ascend D Quad

For now, consumers are still paying attention to a smartphone's specs, such as how many cores its processor has, how many gigabytes of RAM or ROM it has to its name, or how big its display is. Soon, however, only the geeks and the wannabes will care about these.

So, with that in mind, we let Huawei bask in the glory of coming out with the world's fastest and most powerful smartphone, the Ascend D Quad. Equipped with the company's own quad-core processor, the Ascend D Quad signals Huawei's shift of its focus from making basic features phones to manufacturing more profitable and higher-end smartphones.

Smartphone vendors need to strike as fast as they can while the proverbial iron is still hot. If some analysts' predictions concerning the fast-approaching commoditization of smartphones become reality (which this corner thinks is most likely), manufacturing smartphones will become as high margin as making refrigerators and washing machines.

HTC Announces 3 Android Phones

Also at the Mobile World Congress, HTC introduced three Android-powered smartphones, the HTC One S, X, and V. The One X comes with a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 Super LCD 2 screen, and a noticeably high-quality build. Equipped with a quad-core 1.5GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, the Android 4.0-running One X is set to sour Huawei's "fastest smartphone" claims for the Ascend D Quad.

The One S comes with a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 Super AMOLED screen. Powered by a dual-core Qualcomm S4 processor, it runs Android 4.0 and comes with 16GB of internal memory.

Last, comes the One V, which includes a 3.7-inch 800 x 480 Super LCD screen. It comes with a design that seems to be inspired by a certain late-night talk TV host-cum-standup-comedian.

That's all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.