Android Nabs Milestone 81 Percent of Smartphone Market
November 12, 2013 in public
(credit to: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2427013,00.asp)
- November 12, 2013 11:10am EST
Google’s Android platform had a milestone third quarter, topping 80 percent of global smartphone shipments for the first time, according to IDC.
The analyst firm also said Microsoft’s Windows Phone had an “amazing” quarter with 156 percent year-over-year growth.
“Android and Windows Phone continued to make significant strides in the third quarter. Despite their differences in market share, they both have one important factor behind their success: price,” Ramon Llamas, Research Manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team, said in a statement. “Both platforms have a selection of devices available at prices low enough to be affordable to the mass market, and it is the mass market that is driving the entire market forward.”
Android reached 81 percent of the smartphone market thanks to its “broad and deep list of vendors,” IDC said. Still, Samsung led the charge with 39.9 percent of Android shipments, while other Android vendors “still struggle to find meaningful market share.”
Apple’s iOS landed in second place with 12.9 percent of mobile operating system share. That’s down from 14.4 percent during the same time period last year, but IDC attributed that to “soft demand in the weeks leading up to the launch of iOS 7 smartphones.”
“If the 9 million units sold during the last week of September is any indication of future adoption, iOS stands to reap another record quarter in terms of volumes, market share, and year-over-year growth,” IDC concluded.
Windows Phone landed at 3.6 percent mobile OS market share, up from 2 percent last year. It shipped 9.5 million devices during the third quarter, driven largely by Nokia.
“By itself, Nokia accounted for 93.2 percent of all the Windows Phone-powered smartphones shipped during the quarter, marking a new milestone in the company’s short history on the Microsoft platform,” IDC said. “Participation from other vendors, meanwhile, still seemed a mixed bag with more vendors participating from a year ago, but volumes still far behind Nokia’s own.”
BlackBerry continued its downward spiral, landing at 1.7 percent share for the quarter, down from 4.5 percent last year.
Google recently released a new version of Android, dubbed KitKat.
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