Gartner: Android, iOS gain, RIM, Windows, Symbian decline

Research firm Gartner has spelled out Android and Apple's dominance in the global smartphone market, revealing the Q1 sales figures today.

Android moved to 36 percent share from 9.6 percent in the Q1 2010, with sales increasing to 36 million from 5 million year-over-year (YoY).

Symbian, the now defunct smartphone OS, fell from 44.2 percent share to 27.4 percent, even though sales increased to 27.6 million from 24.1 million. Symbian should eventually fall to 0 as Symbian has been left for dead by Nokia as they move on to Windows Phone 7.

Apple's iOS saw 16.9 million sales and 16.8 percent share, up from 15.3 percent share and 8.4 million sales.

RIM, despite growth for its BlackBerry smartphones, saw market share collapse to 12.9 percent from 19.7 percent. Sales increased to 13 million from 10.75 million.

Microsoft saw a weak introduction for its Windows Phone 7 line and market share fell to 3.6 percent from 6.8 percent. Sales saw a minor fall, from 3.7 million to 3.66 million.

Other OS, like Bada, accounted for the rest of the sales.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 May 2011 22:25

blueboy09

Unfortunately, it seems like Symbian is going the way of the dodo bird, with RIM not far behind. Of course, Android and Apple are what's the 'in' thing right now, which is to be expected. Microsoft is practically on the neutral fence right now, not sure what's to become of them yet, but whatever happens, we can definitely agree that any product from these companies are sure to be talked about for many years to come for sure.

Chance prepares the favored mind. Look up once in a while and you might learn something. - BLUEBOY

21.5.2011 23:06 #1

ZeusAV

I'm still unsure about Windows, but I think it's going to come down to Android vs iOS. Apple probably got their small gain from expanding to Verizon. Once they're on all carriers then we will see more intense competition between them and Android.

22.5.2011 12:07 #2

oappi

Windows phones aren't that bad, but they lack some of the features that even symbian had =/. There was also an incident that firmware upgrade bricked a lot of windows phones (was it ovet 10% dont really remember still quite huge number) and ms blamed users for not having enough space for the upgrade. Apple phones are too closed to my liking since im considering developing my own software to mobile platform im using and don't really want to ask apple if it is ok for me to run my own code in my own device. So because of my slight hatred towards microsoft and apples way of doing business im going to have to use android. Still it will be interesting to see how windows phones are going to evolve.

22.5.2011 13:40 #3

dnox1978 (unverified)

I belive that microsft will grow in the phone os market, becouse ther windows 8 and wp8 is the shit. Think aboutit nokia drop symbian and insted begun using wp 7/8 , the majotity of computers still use windows!

20.8.2011 23:55 #4

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