Android dominates Smartphone Market: Report

Android dominates Smartphone Market
The IDC figures closely match those from Canalys reported last week with Android clearly dominating the smartphone market while Apple remains solidly in second place. The success of Samsung’s Android phones helped Google’s operating system extend its dominance in the smartphone market.

Apple shook up the smartphone market when it released its first iPhone in 2007. It showed that phones can do much more than make calls and send email. But in recent years, Google has mounted a serious challenge with Android and benefits from having several manufacturers as partners, including Samsung, HTC Corp. and Motorola Mobility, which Google ended up buying this year. Apple still dominates in tablet computers, with Android tablets well behind the iPad.

Samsung’s Galaxy S III phone received good reviews when it was released late in the second quarter. It also benefits from the company’s strategy of making various devices that target a range of consumers. By contrast, Apple targets only the high-end market with its iPhone.

According to IDC, Samsung accounted for 44 percent of all Android phones in the second quarter and shipped more Android phones than the next seven Android phone makers combined.

IDC estimates that Samsung shipped 50.2 million smartphones in the quarter, though that includes a few million phones running the Bada system based on Linux. Apple shipped 26 million iPhones.
Worldwide smartphone shipments grew 42 percent to 154 million in the second quarter. Combined, Android and Apple had 85 percent of the market, up from 66 percent a year ago.

“The mobile OS market is now unquestionably a two-horse race due to the dominance of Android and iOS,” Kevin Restivo, a senior research analyst at IDC.

Microsoft and RIM are both coming out with new versions of their operating systems — Windows in October and BlackBerry early next year. The share of Windows phone grew to 3.5 percent, from 2.3 percent, in the latest quarter, largely because of its adoption by Nokia. Windows was the fifth-largest phone operating system but was gaining on No. 3 BlackBerry and No. 4 Symbian.

More details of the report can be found here

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