Android dominance continues
Friday, February 17, 2012 - 09:35:38
In the final quarter of 2011 over half of all smartphones sold were running the Android operating system, according to figures published by Gartner.
This now means that of all the smartphones in use today, about a third are powered by Google's mobile platform. Given its current rate of growth, it seems likely that this will eventually rise to encompass more than 50 per cent of the market.
149 million smartphones were sold in the last three months of the year, which is almost 50 per cent higher than the figure reported during the same period in 2010.
While Android is performing well, Apple is still able to impress, thanks to its solo efforts with iOS accounting for 24 per cent of smartphone sales at the end of last year.
The Symbian operating system preferred by Nokia until it signed on to Windows Phone was pushed into third place by Apple and Google, accounting for almost 12 per cent of the market.
Nokia remains the world's largest single manufacturer of mobile phones as it is still performing well in emerging markets where expensive smartphones do not sell as well as more basic models.
Chinese mobile manufacturer, ZTE, saw its business grow significantly last year as it moved into fifth place overall, selling 56 million mostly entry-level phones.
Since Android is the choice of budget manufacturers who want to provide smartphone capabilities at a low price point, it is unsurprising that Google's platform is able to secure such a significant stake in the market.
2012 is going to be another big year for Android thanks to the emergence of the first quad core smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X/Endeavour. You may need to sell your old mobile phone if you want to get a bit of extra cash in order to pay for one of these high end behemoths.
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