Smart phones grab bigger share of the market as sales nearly double
Watch out dumb phones, the smart phones are closing in.
The global sale of smart phones during the third quarter nearly doubled over the same period last year, to 80 million, research firm Gartner Inc. said in a report Wednesday.
Smart phones accounted for about 19% of the 417 million mobile phones sold in the quarter, a jump of 6 percentage points from a year earlier.
The standings shifted in the contentious battle between smart phones, with those powered by Google Inc.’s Android operating system jumping to 26% of all phones sold during the quarter, up from just 3% last year. That catapulted Google beyond both Apple Inc. and BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Inc. to become the second-largest smart phone platform.
Android runs on nearly 100 phones from most major manufacturers, including Samsung, HTC and Sony.
Apple’s iPhone came in second place, with 16.7% of the quarterly market share, down slightly from 17.1% last year. Research in Motion fell behind Apple in North America, with a 14.8% share, down from 20.7% last year.
The leading smart phone maker by operating system, however, is Nokia. The Finnish company sold 117 million mobile phones (smart and dumb) in the quarter, nearly 46 million more than Samsung, the second-place mobile manufacturer.
Still, Nokia’s quarterly market share for sales of all mobile phones dropped to 27% from 38% last year, signaling an erosion of the company’s longtime dominance.
