IDC: Android, iOS grab 90 percent of global smartphone market
Summary: Research firm IDC says Google-developed Android is now on three-quarters of all smartphones worldwide, while Apple's closed software-hardware ecosystem relegates the platform to a distant second-pace.
Latest figures from research firm IDC shows Google's Android mobile operating system is dominating the mobile market, with the software present on three-quarters of smartphones worldwide in the third quarter.
According to the figures, Android's gain is mostly thanks to the wide range of smartphone manufacturers adopting the software on a bevy of phones. According to comScore figures released today, Samsung retains a strong lead on the mobile OEM market. While Samsung's lead is due to a range of cheap feature phones and low-budget Android-powered smartphones, the company has seen strong success with its Galaxy range of smartphones, in particular the Galaxy S III, which has sold more than 30 million handsets in the three months since it first launched.
Meanwhile, 'underdog' Apple has only 14.9 percent of the mobile market as a result of its closed ecosystem and software exclusivity with the iPhone range.
By the numbers, Google's Android and Apple's iOS mobile platforms account for just shy of 90 percent of the overall smartphone market worldwide.
Android shipped on 136 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012, taking in 75 percent of the global smartphone market; a year-over-year change of more than 90 percent.
In comparison, iOS shipped on 26.9 million iPhones in the third quarter of 2012, taking a 14.9 percent of the global smartphone market, representing a 57 percent increase year-over-year.
Research in Motion's BlackBerry platform remains at third place and accounts for 7.7 percent of the worldwide smartphone market. However its market share continues to fall rapidly by 34 percent on the same quarter a year ago.
RIM faces further dwindling smartphone market share in the run-up to the launch of the next-generation BlackBerry 10 release, aimed for the first quarter of 2013, but some analysts believe the new range of QNX-based smartphones will not launch until the end of the three-month period.
Nokia's now-defunct Symbian platform declined the most in share, according to IDC, by more than 77 percent year-over-year. That said, Symbian's decline comes as a blessing for Nokia as it continues to plug the Windows Phone platform through its 'special relationship' with Microsoft.
On that note, the biggest gainer of all the platforms is Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system. Year-over-year it has seen a 140 percent increase in share on shipments. However, in spite of Nokia and Microsoft's relationship and the ongoing push for Lumia sales to bring up the Windows Phone share, the Microsoft mobile software still comes in fourth-place after Nokia. IDC pegs global shipments of Windows Phone-powered devices at just 3.6 million for the third quarter.
In the coming quarter, it's likely that Symbian's continued decline along with a range of new Windows Phone 8-powered smartphones could switch the third- and fourth-place around and see Windows Phone in fourth place.
Image credit: IDC.
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Talkback
Good for Android
Nope
And only idiots separate Android and Linux, because Android IS Linux distribution.
Fragmentation it is
yea, right
Windows OWNS the desktop market, there is vastly more fragmentation in widows than OSX and yet OSX is at what 7%??
I could explain why "fragmentation" is a non issue from version 2.3 onwards. (Google's core apps are now version independent meaning 2.3 gets the same version of maps as 4.1)
I could point out that that "pain in the butt" will be more and more worthwhile as the market shifts to the victor in the app war.
As for stable and mature. WP8 will be the failure that WP7 was, and windows 8 will be a larger failure than vista. As for more mature, seriously? If you were talking about CE based hardware available since the early 90's, I would agree. But phone 8 and phone 7 are completely new. Yes I have used them, and I found them to be terrible.
Really?
2.3 Maps is still more useful iOS6 maps
The version of maps app is updated.
Re: When you have so many inconsistent distributions out there...
Whereas, when a company (let's call it "Nongoogle") decides that versions of its OS (let's call it Nondroid") up to 6.5 are a dead end, so Nondroid 7 will be a fresh start with no compatibility with the older version, and then two years later gives up on Nondroid 7 as well and announces that Nondroid 8 will be yet another fresh start, with no compatibility with Nondroid 7...
Now that, you might more reasonably think, could be described as just a teentsy bit fragmented, wouldn't you agree?
Making a mountain out of a molehill?
What's with people trying to make mountains out of teentsy little mole hills?
WP8 is a mature platform?
An OS that's unable to run in more than 1 core, the iPhone killer?
I will tell you, for the developers I work with, is all about iOS. Is all about html5, because is the universal agnostic layer able to play in any platform or OS. iOS IS the mature platform. There is were is the money, & the reward.
The fact sales at the Microsoft market are pitiful, you must be an die hard rockhead to be even considering that market.
Well
As for Android fragmentation, that's just something iFans like to mention, without even understanding the issue. Yeah, it's bad when an OEM releases a device with an older version of Android, worse when they drop that device for updates while it's still on store shelves. Google needs to work on this, and one of the missions for the Nexus devices is to show every other OEM that there are going to be products on the market shipped with the latest OS and kept current with new versions of Android. This is something most likely to be sorted out in the market, though Google could make changes in Android to make updates easier.
But this is NOT a serious problem for the actual user. You're annoyed you can't get ICS or Jellybean or whatever, but that annoyance doesn't make your device any less usable. What's really critical is that applications work. Android has the best up/down compatibility of any mobile platform. Applications can ask for what they want, and if it's not available, do without. Most applications written since Android 1.6 run just dandy on a Jellybean tablet, for example.
This unlike the real fragmentation in the other markets. iPad applications just don't run, by design, on phones. And Windows 7 Phone devices can't run Windows Phone 8 apps. Period. And of course, people bought Windows 7 Phone devices only a month or so ago, and have no chance of an upgrade to the new OS. Sure, they'll have a service pack (7.8) to make Windows 7 Phone look like Windows Phone 8. But all anyone really cares about is app compatibility.
It's also naive beyond description to call Windows Phone 8 a "mature" platform. It's effectively as new as iOS was in the original iPhone, since it's not either a full version of the desktop Windows, nor does it have much of anything to do with the WinCE based Windows 7 Phone.
And while Apple has been fairly good about updates, they dropped the original iPad for iOS 6, even though it was still on sale in 2011, maybe even sold new in 2012 in some shops.
Security updates are important. Upgrades are less important.
Microsoft does a good job with security updates for Windows Phone OS, even if they don't support upgrades from 7.x to 8.x. If the applications continue to work and receive timely security updates, most customers will be satisfied.
It's mainly techies that crave the latest and greatest OS version.
I can't get my 18month old iPad upgraded to iOS6
hmm But how can we judge by this %age
I can be wrong but Time will tell
I am also even Start writing from Android but the future will tell more
ahmedkabir.tumblrDOTcom
RE: I can't get my 18month old iPad upgraded to iOS6
On OS X, Apple supports two versions simultaneously, currently Lion and Mountain Lion. Why doesn't Apple support two versions of iOS, currently iOS 5 and 6, simultaneously?
Id say relegated to 2nd has to do more with apples licensing and pricing.
Personally
No testing?
Let's Read Between the Lines
And if developers target iOS because of limited fragmentation, then the S3 would be a better target now, right?
S3 sales are not from "last 3 months", those are from the beginning of ...
However, Samsung's mobile unit grows faster than Apple. So if Apple will want to keep #1 phone model in the world spot, it has to push very hard.