Android leads global smartphone market with 52.5 percent share

by Steven Mostyn - Nov 16 2011, 10:26

With Google’s mobile operating system appearing on more and more smartphones, it comes as scant surprise to learn that Android is crushing any and all competition.

Specifically, new research figures published by Gartner reveal that Android almost doubled its global market share by ending the third quarter with a whopping 52.5 percent chunk of the smartphone pie.

“Android has a diverse spectrum of devices, ranging from being inexpensive, well under $100, to high-end LTE [Long Term Evolution] devices,” said Gartner analyst Hughes de la Vergne. “There’s a device at every price point and feature set.”

Meanwhile, Nokia’s once-dominant Symbian operating platform could only manage 17 percent, which is a plunge of 19 percent when measured against its 36 percent share in Q3 of 2010.

Apple’s iPhone may well be hugely popular with consumers, but it’s a single smartphone battling against a number of manufacturers that favor Android (i.e., Samsung, HTC, and Motorola).

As such, the California-based company’s proprietary iOS software lost 1.6 percent year-on-year and ended the quarter with a global market share of just 15 percent.

Over the border in Canada, enterprise specialist Research In Motion took a year-on-year hit of 4.4 percent, leaving its BlackBerry line with a Q3 share of 11 percent.

Finally, despite all the bluster and fanfare surrounding Nokia’s Lumia 800 and its Windows Phone 7 software, Microsoft is limping along behind its rivals with a 1.5 percent market share (down 1.2 percent against the same period in 2010).

Taking a closer look at Android’s ongoing success, Galaxy maker Samsung is providing most of the push—thanks to tripling its sales to 24 million handsets and becoming the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer.

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