Mobile
Canalys: Android kicks Symbian off the top of the smartphone heap
Industry analyst Canalys announced today that more smartphones shipped with Google’s Android OS last quarter than did smartphones of any other OS, including long-time leader Nokia’s Symbian. While it turned out to be a fantastic quarter for Google, the surging smartphone market grew for everyone… well, almost everyone.
Canalys Smart Phone Analysis, Quarterly Shipment Data
Looking at the total compared to last year, we can’t say Android’s growth comes at the expense of Symbian or any other single platform. While market share shifted towards Android, making it a clear winner, the entire market grew by more than 88% with everyone selling more smartphones than last year, except Microsoft. Despite a major marketing push with Windows Phone, MS shipped fewer units in this growing market, the only one to do so for the quarter, which is horrible news for them.
That exception aside, Android appears to be a tide that raises all ships. While I’m sure everyone wishes they had a bigger piece of the market, they all shipped more units and there are plenty more mobile phone users to be converted to smartphone users.
Via BGR
Update: Market research firm NPD backs up the report with similar numbers in the U.S. and notes Windows Phone debuted with 2 percentage points, while Windows Mobile dropped 3 points to 4 percentage points.