The worldwide smartphone market continues to see
explosive growth, according to research and analysis firm Gartner, nearly
doubling from the third quarter last year. As previous reports had suggested,
Apple has allegedly passed RIM in percentage of total handsets sold, owning
3.2% of the market to Waterloo's 2.9%; last quarter RIM led Apple 3.4% to 2.7%
and 2.8% to 2.3% in Q3 2009. Nokia retains its lead with 28.2% global share,
although that is down from 34.2% last quarter and 36.7% a year ago. Both Nokia
and RIM did, however, see year-over-year growth in units sold.
In terms of operating system distribution, the troubled Symbian
platform continues to top the leaderboard, but its share has
plummeted from 44.6% in Q3 of last year to 36.6% this past quarter. Most of
that loss can be attributed to the growing popularity of Android, which went
from 1.9% share in Q2 2009 to 3.5% in Q3 of that year to 17.2% in Q2 of 2010
and 25.5% this latest quarter. As we recently saw in a separatereport from
Canalys, Android has become the most prevalent operating system in
the US. According to Gartner, Samsung is the top Android manufacturer, having
sold 6.6 million of the handsets last quarter.
Windows
Mobile is barely represented in these numbers, although as we've noted before,
the platform is in a transitional period that has likely convinced potential
customers to postpone their purchases. We've heard that initial Windows
Phone 7 sales have been good, which bodes well for Microsoft's
billion dollar investment -- and might end up causing none other than Gartner
to eat crow, following its dire predictions
for the OS four years out.
via PocketNow
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