In short, Android and Apple’s IOS day by day popularity is growing thick and fast among masses.
On 24th May 2012 IDC released their quarterly report on worldwide smartphone market share by operating system. With Android at 59% market share is at top spot,
while iOS maintained a respectable second place (23%), Symbian (6.8%) and BlackBerry (6.4%) are at 3rd and 4th position respectively and continued their downward spirals. Windows Phone growth saw decent 26.9% growth since last year, but that still only amounts to 2.2% market share. All in all, 152.3 million smartphones were shipped in Q1 2012, which is 49.9% more than the same quarter in 2011.
Android has also taken over in the United Kingdom as the No.1 smartphone operating system in terms of market share. Android had a 36.9 percent share at 36.4m units while Apple’s iPhone had 28.5 percent at 33.1m units.
Android is installed on hundreds of phones while iOS is only installed on the iPhone, which is divided into five different models, of which two Apple models have discontinued. Keeping this in mind, it’s understandable that Android has more mobile OS market share than iOS in the United Kingdom.
Between Apple and Google's operating systems, 80% of the world's smartphones are accounted for. In order for operating system challengers to gain share, their creators and hardware partners need to secure developer loyalty. This is true because developer intentions or enthusiasm for a particular operating system is typically a leading indicator of hardware sales success.
In May 2012 ComScore released the results of their research on trends in the mobile phone industry. The research report focused on three months period from February 2012 to May 2012 and takes into account responses from over 30,000 U.S. mobile phone subscribers. It also listed what the trends were at the beginning February versus the end of May.
Samsung came out on top with over 56% share of the market, and relatively no change over the three months. LG also held their share of the market and came in at over 19%.
Apple increased mobile phone market share and went from 13.5% in February to 15% in May. Motorola lost a little going from 12.8% down to 12%. HTC changed very little, slipping from 6.3% down to 6.1%.
Google came out on top, rising from 50.1% in February to just under 60% in May. Apple, of course, was next in line holding a 30.2% share in February and rising to 31.9% by May. Research In Motion (RIM), somehow actually still in the game at 13.4% in February, but falling to just 11.4% by May.
Microsoft held about 4% share in February and gained very little. Symbian, which held 1.5% in February slipped to just 1.1% by the time May rolled around. So, as you might have expected, Google and Apple control about 90% of the smartphone market.
Around 75% use their phones to send text messages. Around 50% of users take advantage of their phone to download apps. Also about 50% used their phone to browse the web. Around 33% used them for gaming, and about 36% used them to access social networks.
