It is predicting a 26 percent increase over 2013, amounting to over 1.1 billion tablets, phones and other tech gadgets that will be sold running the operating system. China is one of those major sources of growth, though Gartner doesn't see this as particularly good news for Google as devices sold with Android in the country typically have Google services stripped.
"Android has the volume even if you can say Apple still has the value," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner's Global Forecasting team.
"But the question for Google is how it leverages its huge number of users. Many of the handset owners in emerging markets will have bought low-end phones and won't be buying many apps at this stage. The key for Google is to ensure they upgrade to other mid-tier Android devices."
Sales of devices running iOS and Mac OS will hit 344 million in 2014, according to Gartner, while devices sold running Microsoft's Windows operating systems will hit 360 million - increases of 28 percent and 10 percent respectively.
Written by: James Delahunty @ 7 Jan 2014 9:40
