Mobile OS wars: Apple, RIM surge; Symbian still dominant

Gartner's first quarter smartphone market share statistics show that Nokia's Symbian remains the dominant mobile operating system, but is losing share to operating systems from Research in Motion and Apple.

To wit (see Gartner statement): 

• Symbian's first quarter smartphone OS share was 49.3 percent, down from 56.9 percent a year ago. But that's up from the fourth quarter. 
• RIM's BlackBerry OS surged to 19.9 percent, up from 13.3 percent a year ago. 
• And Apple's iPhone OS was 10.8 percent of the market, up from 5.3 percent a year ago. 

Gartner's smartphone unit data echoes the stats from IDC a few weeks ago. Gartner said mobile phone sales were 269.1 million units in the first quarter, down 9.4 percent from a year ago. Smartphone sales were 36.4 million units, up 12.7 percent a year ago. 

Here's a look at the dumb phone standings:

And the smartphone standings:

Also see: Wither the 'smartphone': Reorganizing the mobile market when all devices get smart

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