Mobile OS Competition
Google’s Android mobile operating system now accounts for more than 80% of the global smartphone OS market.
According to IDC’s figures for the global smartphone market in Q3 2013 released on November 13 (local time), 211.6 million Android devices were shipped worldwide, making up 81% of the global smartphone market. This is the first time for Android to exceed 80% in market share. In Q3 2012, Android smartphones represented 74.9% of the total, with 139.9 million units shipped. In Q2 this year, they constituted 79.3%.
The second most popular mobile OS was Apple’s iOS. It comprised 12.9% of the global market (3.38 million units) in Q3 this year, a year-on-year decrease of 14.4% (2.69 million units).
US-based Wired reported that Google has continued to dominate the market, since the company has focused on only the OS, rather than going head-to-head with Apple in both OS and hardware.
In total, 261.1 million units of smartphones were sold worldwide in Q3 this year, up 39.9% from a year ago (186.7 million units).