Official: Android rules OK
Slides past Symbian to take smartphone lead
Android has surged past Symbian to become the world's most popular smartphone operating system.
So show Q4 2010 figures from market watcher Canalys, released today, which give Google a 32.9 per cent market share ahead of Nokia, which took 30.6 per cent of the market.
Apple took 16 per cent of the market, Research in Motion (Rim) 14.4 per cent.
Microsoft managed to take a 3.1 per cent market share during the quarter.
That marks a year-on-year plunge from the 7.2 per cent it took in Q4 2009. Google, by contrast, saw is share leap from 8.7 per cent in the same period.
Nokia plunged from 44.4 per cent, while RIM slid from 20 per cent and Apple was down on the 16.3 per cent share it achieved in Q4 2009.
Fans of these firms' offerings needn't worry: the world boom in smartphones during 2010 means that reduced market share was more than compensated for by large increases in the number of handsets shipped. ®
COMMENTS
Nokia still number one
Presumably Nokia are still the number one seller (both in the arbitrarily defined "smartphone" category, and the more objective category of phones). It was inevitable that Android would likely become number one, as it's been picked up by most other companies - it's Nokia versus everyone else.
~30% for the largest company is still very respectable (after all, Apple's OS X stands as an alternative OS at less than 10% share, and no one complains about that).
And as the article notes, Nokia haven't actually lost sales, the number of sales of Symbian phones still increases.
The other news is, once again, Symbian still outsells Apple - so can we quit the endless coverage of Apple, whilst Nokia get ignored except when it's "bad" news? If being number three or number four is good for Apple, why isn't being number two good? Similarly for Android, whose uses were happy to use it for years when it wasn't anywhere near number one.
Confusion caused by Android growing explosively
You're probably confused by two things.
One, we're talking about market share so even though Apple sold nearly double the number of phones they did this quarter last year, which is pretty good growth, it just so happened that the market as a whole also roughly doubled, so their share of the pie is static even though there's many more iPhone users this year.
The second thing is that Android is growing at an even more ridiculously fast rate. So last year, Apple had twice the share of Android at 16% to 8%. However, while Apple's share is static at 16% (their sales growing very slightly less than the market as a whole) Android's have shot up to 32%. (That's 615% growth, in a market growing at an average of 89%, and in which no other mobile OS is growing at above that average).
There's also the issue that Apple (and Nokia)'s head start means they have more phones out there as installed base, even though Android is selling more now. However, the growth rate of the market, and of Android's share of the market means that total won't take long to be passed, even if you add in non-phone iOS devices like iPod Touch and iPad.
Slightly misleading ...
what the article really says is that Android is the best selling mobile OS at the moment.
Somehow I think that there will be massively more Symbian devices in service than Android ones, which would still make Symbian the most popular.
You'll upset iPhans presenting data this way
To keep the Jobs Mob happy you are supposed to divvy up the Android market, on the basis that they are not really the same, by manufacturer and then iPhans will think Apple is on top.
Of course, the real world knows the truth - likely why they don't buy the Lemons - that Android is No. 1 no matter what the Cupertino lie factory, sorry, Apples PR lot say.
Errm OK
Tinfoil hat time.. Google don't swalloe whole everything about your life if you own a Android phone...
Personally I find it very handy that my calendar and contacts (and gmail) are all sync'd on my phone(s) and on my Gmail account. I never need to lose anything ever again, and having closely looked at the privacy, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Looks like it's FUD time
