IDC: Android and iOS continue to gain market share in Q1 2012

It is quickly becoming a two horse race in the global smartphone market. According to IDC, Android and iOS accounted for 82% of the market in the first quarter of 2012. A year ago, the two held a combined share of 54.4%. Gains came primarily at the expense of Symbian and BlackBerry.

“The popularity of Android and iOS stems from a combination of factors that the competition has struggled to keep up with,” said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Phone Technology and Trends program. “Neither Android nor iOS were the first to market with some of these features, but the way they made the smartphone experience intuitive and seamless has quickly earned a massive following.”

Android dominates the market with a 59% share. Shipments grew an impressive 145% over the same quarter a year ago. Apple also showed tremendous growth, rising from 18.3% to 23% thanks to an 88% growth in shipments. Symbian, which still holds third spot, plummeted to a 6.8% share. BlackBerry lost more than half of its market share and now sits in the single digits at 6.4%. Holding down sixth position behind Linux (primarily represented by Samsung’s bada) is the combination of Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile. Their share now stands at 2.2% but shipments showed an encouraging 26.9% increase.

Chart: Worldwide Smartphone OS Market Share, 1Q 2012Description: IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker provides smart phone and feature phone market data in 54 countries by vendor, device type, air interface, operating systems and platforms, and generation. Over 20 additional technical segmentations are provided. The data is provided four times a year and includes historical and forecast trend analysis. For more information, or to subscribe to the research, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 1-650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com.Further detail about this tracker can be found at:http://www.idc.com/tracker/showproductinfo.jsp?prod_id=37Tags: Author: IDCcharts powered by iCharts

Android holds the longest list of smartphone vendor partners. Unsurprisingly, Samsung, now the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, accounted for 45.4% of all Android-based smartphone shipments.

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