Android = iOS + RIM + Microsoft + Other
Gartner is out with their first quarter 2011 mobile phone market survey. The results are astounding. The first quarter belonged to Google and everyone else was reduced to extras in an Android show. Both Apple and Google grew their respective share of the smartphone market, estimated at 100.8 million quarterly units – nearly double the 54.5 million units from the year-ago quarter. Smartphones grew 85 percent and cut into sales of regular handsets, accounting for almost one quarter (23.6 percent) of the 427.8 million handsets shipped during the first quarter.
Predictably, Android was the leading smartphone platform in the first quarter of 2011. And here comes your mind-boggling takeaway: More Android-powered smartphones were sold during the first quarter than the combined sales of Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerrys, Microsoft Windows Phone smartphones and vendors belonging to the Other OS category. And that is worldwide, mind you. Go ahead, do the math yourself (the below table).
It’s fascinating that Microsoft and Symbian combined had three percentage points lower market share than Android. Also, while Apple doubled iPhone sales, they barely gained any marketshare. This just shows that Android is gobbling up market share at a rapid pace, eating pretty much everyone’s lunch in the process…
