As hostile as they are toward each other, Android and iOS continue to reign as a powerful team when it comes to dominating smartphone market share. In the second quarter of 2012, IDC found that combined they represent 85 percent of all smartphones shipped.
Android has a gigantic lead, holding just under 70 percent of the market — 68.1 percent or 104.8 million devices, to be exact. That’s up over 20 percent from its 46.9 percent market share in 2011. Apple shipped 26 million iOS devices last quarter, giving it a 16.9 percent share. Sad little BlackBerry and sad little Symbian respectively accounted for 4.8 percent and 4.4 percent of the market. This is the lowest market share for BlackBerry since the first quarter of 2009.
Samsung is practically sitting on top of the world as of last quarter. The company’s 50.8 million devices shipped alone makes up 44 percent of all Android smartphones shipped, not leaving much room for the competitors to squeeze in on the pie chart with their contributions. Apple’s growth was of a fair amount, but not spectacular since the last major iPhone launch was for the 4S in October. Plus, rumors of a new iPhone next month are slowing down sales a bit.
There’s one more platform worth mentioning however: Windows Phone. It’s not doing so well, unfortunately. Market share is behind Symbian at 3.5 percent. It did grow from 2.3 percent in 2011 so it’s headed in the right direction, but I’m sure a 1.2 percent increase over an entire year is not quite the explosive popularity Microsoft would be hoping for.
Total smartphone shipments in Q2 are 154 million, up about 43 percent from the 108.3 shipped in the year-ago quarter.