Gartner earlier this week released its Q1 2011 “Market Share Analysis: Mobile Devices, Worldwide” report. Smartphones continued to outpace the overall mobile communication market which saw shipments of nearly 428 million devices.
“Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. “This share could have been even higher, but manufacturers announced a number of high-profile devices during the first quarter of 2011 that would not ship until the second quarter of 2011. We believe some consumers delayed their purchases to wait for these models.”
Google Android saw its market share grow to 36 percent (up from 9.6 percent the same quarter a year ago). Symbian holds second place but saw its market share plummet to 27.4 percent (from 44.2 percent). Apple’s iOS, Research In Motion and Microsoft hold the next three spots respectively.
Gartner expects that two recent developments will help alter this list over the next few years: Microsoft’s Windows Phone partnership with Nokia and the retirement of Symbian. The prediction is likely welcome at Microsoft as its mobile operating system recorded modest sales of 1.6 million devices as Windows Phone “failed to grow in consumer preference and CSPs continued to focus on Android.”