By Telecom Lead Team: In the smartphone OS market, Android share declined
sequentially due to strong iPhone sales, driven in particular by the iPhone 4S
in mature markets and the weakness of key Android vendors as they struggled to
create unique and differentiated devices.
Samsung remained the main contributor to Android share
gains in the second half of 2011. iOS’s market share grew 8 percentage points
year-on-year, but Gartner analysts expect Apple’s share to drop in the next
couple of quarters as the upgrade cycle to the iPhone 4S slows. Nokia’s first
Windows Phone smartphones, the Lumia 710 and 800, made their debut, but, as
expected, sales were not enough to prevent a fall in Microsoft’s smartphone
market share.
Worldwide smartphone sales to end users soared to 149
million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 47.3 per cent increase from the
fourth quarter of 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Total smartphone sales in
2011 reached 472 million units and accounted for 31 percent of all mobile
devices sales, up 58 percent from 2010.
Smartphone volumes during the quarter rose due to record
sales of Apple iPhones. As a result, Apple became the third-largest mobile
phone vendor in the world, overtaking LG. Apple also became the world’s top
smartphone vendor, with a market share of 23.8 percent in the fourth quarter of
2011, and the top smartphone vendor for 2011 as a whole, with a 19 percent
market share.
“Western Europe and North America led most of the
smartphone growth for Apple during the fourth quarter of 2011,” said
Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner.
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating
System in 4Q11 (Thousands of Units)
|
Operating System |
4Q11 Units |
4Q11 Market Share ( percent) |
4Q10 Units |
4Q10 Market Share ( percent) |
|
Android |
75,906.1 |
50.9 |
30,801.2 |
30.5 |
|
iOS |
35,456.0 |
23.8 |
16,011.1 |
15.8 |
|
Symbian |
17,458.4 |
11.7 |
32,642.1 |
32.3 |
|
Research In Motion |
13,184.5 |
8.8 |
14,762.0 |
14.6 |
|
Bada |
3,111.3 |
2.1 |
2,026.8 |
2.0 |
|
Microsoft |
2,759.0 |
1.9 |
3,419.3 |
3.4 |
|
Others |
1,166.5 |
0.8 |
1,487.9 |
1.5 |
|
Total |
149,041.8 |
100.0 |
101,150.3 |
100.0 |
Source: Gartner (February 2012)
