Android is continuing its dominance in smartphone operating system market share. According to the latest IDC figures Android reached a new milestone surpassing 80 percent market share hitting 81 percent smartphone market share in the third quarter of 2013. Despite reaching saturation in some markets smartphone market is growing a healthy 39.9% year-over-year in the third quarter according to the report.
Android market share is above 80% but for some of the vendors of Android the growth is just 1%, the biggest gainer is the Samsung which leads the Android market share with its Galaxy series of smartphones. Samsung has shipped 39.9% of all Android shipments accounted for this quarter. The growth of Samsung continuous to grow amid competition from other vendors like Sony, LG and others.
iOS on the other hand loss market share, it declined from 14.4% last year to 12.9% this year for third quarter. The report states that the market share “decline during 3Q13, most likely due to soft demand in the weeks leading up to the launch of iOS 7 smartphones. Still, if the 9 million units sold during the last week of September is any indication of future adoption, iOS stands to reap another record quarter in terms of volumes, market share, and year-over-year growth.”
Another surprise is that Windows Phone is also growing, although the market share is very less, the growth is healthy for Windows Phone, propelled by Nokia and Windows Phone devices spanning a range of price points. Windows Phone market share grow 156% year-over-year for the third quarter largely due to Nokia. Still Windows Phone is at distant third position with just 3.6% of the market share.
“Android and Windows Phone continued to make significant strides in the third quarter. Despite their differences in market share, they both have one important factor behind their success: price,” said Ramon Llamas, Research Manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team. “Both platforms have a selection of devices available at prices low enough to be affordable to the mass market, and it is the mass market that is driving the entire market forward.”
Nokia is leading the Windows Phone market with 93.2% of the shipments of WP phones originating from the Finnish company in the third quarter of 2013.
BlackBerry is continually losing market share, its share went from 4.1% last year to 1.7% this year. Down –80.1% year-over-year in the third quarter.
Another interesting detail in the report is that all successful smartphone vendors have added phones with displays in the range of 5-7inches, often called as phablets. The phablets accounted for 21% of the smartphones shipped in the third quarter, up from 3% last year. This is inline with earlier reports that phablets are driving the smartphone sales in India.
