Google beats Apple, grabs 68% share of the global smartphone market

by Swati on August 13th, 2012

Google’s Android grabbed a whopping 68% share of the global smartphone market last quarter, leaving behind Apple which managed to get only 17% share, a recent report released by the research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) points out.

IDC, which tracks smartphone market share by operating system, said that Android and iOS powered 85% of all smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2012. Meanwhile, BlackBerry and Symbian, the former leaders in the smartphone market, saw their market shares fall below five percent.

Though Apple showed a strong growth this quarter, Android emerged as the winning mobile operating system. Nearly 105 million Android phones were shipped in the second quarter – more than double the number shipped at the same time last year.

“Android continues to fire on all cylinders. The market was entreated to several flagship models from Android’s handset partners, prices were well within reach to meet multiple budgetary needs, and the user experience from both Google and its handset partners boosted Android smartphones’ utility far beyond simple telephony ,” said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Phone Technology and Trends program.

“The mobile OS market is now unquestionably a two-horse race due to the dominance of Android and iOS. With much of the world’s mobile phone user base still operating feature phones, the smartphone OS market share battle is far from over. There is still room for some mobile OS competitors to gain share, although such efforts will become increasingly difficult as smartphone penetration increases,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

IDC adds that Samsung is the main contributor to Android’s phenomenal success in the market. Samsung, accounted for 44.0% of all Android smartphones shipped last quarter and totaled more than the next seven Android vendors’ volumes combined.