One in every two smartphones sold in the world run Android

It took awhile, but Google’s domination of the mobile platform has finally occurred. According to the latest findings by Gartner, Android now has 52.5% market share worldwide – up from 43.4% last quarter and double the 25.3% from one year ago. And even better news for Google – the operating system has been stealing the market from almost every other smartphone platform.

Even though iOS grew by almost 4 million unit sales in the third quarter, the market share dropped from 16.6$ down to 15%. However, it’s expected to pick up again this upcoming quarter since the 4S will be available in more locations worldwide. Samsung’s Bada rose from 1.1% up to 2.2%: ahead of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 which is at 1.5%.

Symbian continued its decline and is now at 16.9% (it was 36.3% a year ago), and RIM’s BlackBerry OS also dropped to 11%. However, RIM’s poor sales this quarter might be due to BBX phones being released next year – people might be holding out on buying new BlackBerry phones.

It looks like Android’s biggest competitor is iOS which is pretty impressive, considering that Apple only introduces one phone a year. I wonder what the smartphone market share will look like this time next year.

George Wong
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Android, Apple Inc, bada, BlackBerry, Google, iOS, market share, Samsung, Windows Phone