Android's Smartphone Market Share "Unshakable" at 75 Percent
Android's theme song should be "Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer (remember him?), because really, there's no other mobile operating system that comes close to the little green robot in the smartphone space. According to Gartner, 74.4 percent of the smartphones shipped around the globe in the first quarter of 2013 were powered by Android, up from 56.9 percent in the same quarter a year ago. The next closest competitor, of course, is Apple's iOS software, which was installed on 18.2 percent of smartphones, down from 22.5 percent a year ago.
Between the two, Google and Apple own more than 92 percent of the smartphone market. All other players are left fighting for scraps, and it's a dogfight between BlackBerry (3 percent) and Microsoft (2.9 percent) as to which gets to come in a distant third place.
"There are two clear leaders in the OS market and Android’s dominance in the OS market is unshakable," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. "With new OSs coming to market such as Tizen, Firefox and Jolla we expect some market share to be eroded but not enough to question Android’s volume leadership."
Overall mobile shipments totaled 426 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 0.7 percent from the same period a year prior. Of those, 210 million were smartphones, which represents a 42.9 percent increase from a year ago. Samsung was once again the busiest body in the smartphone space, shipping over 100.6 million units to claim a 23.6 percent share of the market.
Between the two, Google and Apple own more than 92 percent of the smartphone market. All other players are left fighting for scraps, and it's a dogfight between BlackBerry (3 percent) and Microsoft (2.9 percent) as to which gets to come in a distant third place.
"There are two clear leaders in the OS market and Android’s dominance in the OS market is unshakable," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. "With new OSs coming to market such as Tizen, Firefox and Jolla we expect some market share to be eroded but not enough to question Android’s volume leadership."
Overall mobile shipments totaled 426 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 0.7 percent from the same period a year prior. Of those, 210 million were smartphones, which represents a 42.9 percent increase from a year ago. Samsung was once again the busiest body in the smartphone space, shipping over 100.6 million units to claim a 23.6 percent share of the market.
