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Android increases lead over iOS in Q4 to 78% of smartphone market w/ 226m units shipped

IDC-Q4-2013-smartphones-02

Research firm IDC is out today with its latest report on the worldwide smartphone market highlighting shipments and marketshare by operating system for last quarter and all of 2013. Together Android and iOS made up around 95.7% of all smartphone shipments in the last quarter of 2013 (up from 91.2% in the year ago quarter), but the real story is how much Android has grown compared to iOS. As of last quarter, Android made up almost 80% of that 95.7% and shipped close to 800 million of the billion smartphones shipped during 2013. 

Android finished the year where it began: as the clear leader in the smartphone operating system race. Samsung led all Android vendors with a commanding 39.5% share of shipments for the year. Worth watching is a crowded list of vendors jockeying for position in 2014, including Huawei, LG, Lenovo, Coolpad, and Sony. Should Lenovo’s bid to acquire Motorola Mobility be realized, the new company will leap ahead of Huawei, which was the number 2 Android vendor in 2013.

Compare Apple’s 6% growth and 17.6% percent of the market last quarter to a 40% year-over-year change for Android and 78.1% of the market in Q413 (up from 70% last year). Of course much of that growth, as you can see in IDC’s chart above, comes at the expense of BlackBerry and the “Others” category, while Windows Phone grew to 3.0% of the market up from 2.6% last year.

For the quarter, IDC says Android shipped 226.1 million units and a total of 793.6 million for the year. That compares to 51 million last quarter for Apple and 153.4 million for all of 2013.

IDC’s chart on the worldwide market for all of 2013 is below:

IDC-Q4-2013-smartphones-01

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Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s weekly Logic Pros series and makes music as one half of Toronto-based Makamachine.