Android, the once unknown mobile operating system purchased by Google back in 2007, has become the dominate mobile OS in the world and today's numbers prove just that.
Gartner has official confirmed that out of all the smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2013, Google's Android accounted for a record 79% of them. In total, vendors shipped 178 million Android phones, with 40% of them belonging to Samsung devices.
Samsung maintained the No. 1 position in the global smartphone market, as its share of smartphone sales reached 31.7 percent, up from 29.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (see Table 1). Apple’s smartphone sales reached 32 million units in the second quarter of 2013, up 10.2 percent from a year ago.
While Samsung continues to dominate with Android, others aren't so fortunate. Apple, the once dominant smartphone maker, saw its market share plunge to 14% from 19% in a span of a year. Still, the Cupertino, California-based company's iPhone shipments rose from 29 million to 32 million despite the market share decline.
Microsoft's Windows Phone on the other hand saw a slight bump. Thanks to its partnership with Nokia, its market share rose to 3.3% from 2.6% (Q2 2012), shipping 7.4 million devices.
With everyone doing seemly well, Blackberry is forced to watch its former grip on the smartphone industry loosen. It's market share has tanked to 2.7% from 5.2%, only shipping 6.2 million devices. Compare that to the 8 million its shipped in Q2 2012, you begin to understand why the Canadian-based company is looking for a buyer.
All of the following has finally led to the death of the "dumb" phone. For the fist time in history, smartphones outsold "dumb/feature" phones .
Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/android-crushes-it-q2-accounts-for-79-of-smartphones-shipments?cid=roadrunner