Android reaches 59 percent share of international smartphone market

 

The smartphone war has turned into a two horse race as Android and iOS continue to grow their international hold on the mobile market while competing operating systems such as BlackBerry OS and Symbian continue to fall from relevancy. Android reigns supreme in IDC’s latest look at international smartphone sales with a 59 percent hold on the market in Q1 of 2012. Compared to a year ago, Google’s mobile OS is up about 26 percentage points. Pretty amazing growth.

Samsung is once again responsible for a large portion of the Android contingency with 45.4 percent of all phone running the OS coming from the Korean manufacturer. Samsung’s biggest competitor and legal foe Apple showed some positive growth with iOS now accounting for 23 percent of the world market. That’s up from 18.3 percent last year, but nowhere near the growth Android has experienced. Google and company have benefited from low-cost handsets that cut into featurephone sales and attract new users to the OS.

All things considered, Android and iOS now account for over 80 percent of all smartphones worldwide with the remaining 20 percent divided among BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Phone, and Linux.

Posted in: android, market