The Android operating system has taken another leap to increase the gap between it and Apple’s iOS for quarter number three which ended on September 30. Over 60 million Android powered smartphones shipped all over the world giving Android the 52.5 percent of the market share. It only took about one year for Android to double its market share which was only about 25 percent the same time in 2010. One factor for the rise in market share could be the fact that more than three times the smartphones shipped this year than last.
The numbers for Apple weren’t as good for the same time period. Apple’s iOS lost market share and it fell to about 16.6 percent with only 13.5 shipments. The iOS market share did go up about 1.6 percent from the 2nd quarter. The new numbers for the 3rd quarter show that Apple’s iOS has fallen behind the market share that Symbian owns. Symbian has only 16.9 percent of the market share, but it is still more than Apple’s iOS, at least for the 3rd quarter of 2011. The study performed by Gartner has found that Android was taking over the operating system market very quickly through 2011.
“Android benefited from more mass-market offerings, a weaker competitive environment and the lack of exciting new products on alternative operating systems such as Windows Phone 7 and RIM and Apple’s iOS market share suffered from delayed purchases as consumers waited for the new iPhone,” said Robert Cozza, who is the principle research analyst at Gartner. Apple might have lost some, but the third quarter was the hardest on RIM which saw their market share fall from 15 percent last year to 11 percent this year. RIM only shipped about 12.7 million smartphones for the 3rd quarter this year. Microsoft Windows Phone market share also fell during this period down to 1.5 percent from 2.7 percent from last year.
The study also took a look at the total number of smartphone sales for the third quarter. The study found an increase across the industry. About 30 million more mobile devices were shipped in the third quarter of 2011, which is up from 417 million shipped last year. Total smartphone shipments hit 115 million this year, compared to about 81 million smartphone shipments from 2010.
