Android emerged the big winner as global worldwide smartphone sales soared 50 per cent during the second quarter, according to the bean counters at Gartner.
Android bags #3 global spot
The research company says that Android has became the third largest operating system with sales shimmying past 10 million units for the first time, compared to a paltry 756,000 a year ago and 5.2 million during the first three months of this year.
Driving sales is the North America market, where Android has slapped down Blackberry and Apple to become the top dog smartphone platform, with consumers warming to the large variety of Android handsets on offer at a multitude of price points.
Gartner reckons that Android is set to carry on growing and bag the number two global spot by the end of the year, something that will please Android handset makers HTC who have seen their sales more than double during their second-quarter.
Lord Symbian
Despite falling sales, Symbian remains the king of the smartphones, bagging a colossal 25.4 million sales in the second quarter, a hefty hike up from the 20.9 million unit sales a year earlier, but not enough to stop its market share dropping from 51 per cent to 41.2 per cent.
Research In Motion (RIM) hung on to the second spot worldwide and remains the fourth largest phone maker in the known universe, with Blackberry sales bumping from 7.8 million to 11.2 million, but with market share slumping from 19 per cent to 18.2 per cent.
Apple bobbing up
Sitting in fourth place is Apple’s iOS, with sales growing from 5.3 million to 8.7 million iPhones, and its market share hiking upwards to the tune of 13.0 per cent to 14.2 per cent.
The doomed Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform stayed in fifth place with 3.1 million unit sales and a rapidly declining market share dropping of 5 per cent, down from from 9.3 per cent last year.
With sales like that, the company is desperate for its new Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system to prove a hit.
Smartphones on the rise
Almost one in five new phones bought is now a smartphone, with overall global sales hitting 61.6 million units, while less fancy mobile phones also continued to grow, with 325.6 million units shifted in the second quarter, according to Gartner.
[Via]
